Modernity and Beyond: the Temple of Power

1. Modernity and Beyond: the Temple of Power

3. The Flexnor report – what do you remember about it? • Online students – jot down some points re your memories of this report before going any further

4. Effects of the Flexner Report ~ Summary • In the mid 1800’s the medical elite in the USA where generally: • European trained • From wealthy families • As a group they turned to the social and political development of their profession.

5. They were active members of the American Medical Association (AMA). • In a few decades they changed the AMA from a small low social status organisation to a cohesive political body, with great power and influence. • In doing this they actively reformed medical education within the USA.

6. In 1893 a revolutionary program was developed at Johns Hopkins University. It called for: • Students to already have a University degree. • To then do 2 years of medical school (lab work) • And then 2 years Hospital training. • This program redefined medical training in the USA and later in the world.

7. In 1904 the AMA used the wealth of Carnegie and Rockefeller to set up a Council on Medical Education ~ calling for a systematic inspection and grading of every medical school in the USA.

8. The inspection sort to eliminate what the AMA thought of as inferior schools and push those that followed the Johns Hopkins model. • 1907 Abraham Flexner started visiting the 155 medical schools in America. He was backed by the AMA and Carnegie and Rockefeller money.

9. Flexner recommended the strengthening of the 1st class schools and the closing of the great majority of the other schools. • Between • 1905 - 1910 number of medical schools went from 166 to 133, • by 1915 down to 104 • By 1929 only 76 schools remained (the vast majority were within Universities).

10. The significant consequence of this report was the loss of electicism and diversity within medical education, the adoption on a global scale of a singular educational curriculum and standardised approach to treatment.

11. Read through Beck’s summary of the Flexner Report and consider CAM education and philosophy as you are experiencing it. Based on your knowledge to date, where do you think we would be today if the Flexner report wasn’t written or had had a different finding? • Online students – have a think and see if you agree with the class estimation.

12. For those who will be choosing option 2 for their next assignment, maybe you could add another dimension to this discussion and think about the push for registration of CAM therapists that is happening in Australia, and has been happening since the early part of the century. Is this just a Flexnor response? (Just a thought for discussion, nothing more.......)

13. Now break into 2 groups with one group preparing arguments supporting and one group preparing to refute those arguments. Your topic will be: the Flexnor Report and is long term benefits. • Remember that a debate does not require you to believe what you are arguing – it is aimed at encouraging you to think critically about an issue that has played a vital part in the development of CAM education and the philosophical approaches that have been discussed and that you will be taking into your own practices (or whatever you decide to do).

14. Now draw up a list of the arguments for and against the Flexner Report and using this list, attempt to come to an understanding within your own mind. • You have been put on the spot and asked to write a 10 line objective summary of the effects that the Flexner Report has had on CAM education in the 21st Century. – all online students are to complete this – 10 lines only.