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Students currently entering U.S. medical schools arrive in an era of increasing distrust of large institutions, expanded use of social media for information, a political lexicon in which uncomfortable facts are derided as “fake news” while fabrications masquerade as reality, and the erosion of truth that such trends entail. The challenges for medical education are imminent and formidable. How do we, as teachers, merit the trust of future physicians? How do we pass on to them science’s preeminent legacy of propelling advances in understanding, preventing, and curing illnesses? How do we instill in them a lifelong appreciation for the importance of hypothesis testing, peer review, and critical analysis of research? These questions should prompt an immediate review of the goals and processes of education and the values we need to emphasize in day-to-day interactions with students.
A useful early step in earning the warrants of students is a transparent review of the history of ideas in medicine. Such a survey would make clear that some ideas have worked, some have failed, and some have turned out to be built on scientific fraud — but that developing and testing hypotheses that might not pan out are essential to the scientific method. New ideas have often been rebuffed strongly by people in authority who had reason to fear challenges to the status quo. Some investigators didn’t live long enough to see their novel ideas become widely accepted. Those who succeeded, however, evinced not only unyielding perseverance, but also integrity and dedication not for personal gain but for the...