Current Basic Medical Education from a Comparative Perspective: Curricula of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Korea

Poor clinical clerkships, an exclusive focus on scientific medicine, and a lack of scientific attitudes have been identified as key limitations of Korean medical education. This study aims to critically examine the historical and cultural contexts, as well as the evolving trends in medical education in the United Kingdom and the United States, from a comparative education perspective, in order to address these limitations within the Korean context. The United Kingdom values diversity, democracy, knowledge, and the National Health Service, which have shaped UK medical education to emphasize: (1) graduate outcomes encompassing knowledge, skills, and attitudes; (2) community-based clerkships; (3) a “third discipline” divided among population health, ethics and jurisprudence, psychology, and social sciences; (4) research skills; (5) student-selected components; and (6) cultural diversity. The United States values cultural competence, democracy with a preference for small government, progressivism, and specialty-based patient care. These values have led US medical education to prioritize: (1) competency-based graduate outcomes; (2) longitudinal clinical programs; (3) health systems science; (4) dual degree tracks; (5) transition programs; and (6) critical culturalism that moves beyond traditional notions of cultural competence. Korea, in contrast, values national development, respect, personal growth, democracy, and future-oriented competencies. Currently, there is a lack of critical and emergent care in non-capital regions, and the Korean government oppressively intervenes on both medical education and healthcare delivery. Given these circumstances, the following are needed: (1) contextually relevant graduate outcomes; (2) diverse forms of clerkships to supplement tertiary hospital-based block rotations; (3) expanded education in the social sciences and humanities that goes beyond the narrow paradigm of scientific medicine; (4) research competence that moves beyond logical positivism and academic imperialism; (5) career choice programs; and (6) contextualized anti-bias education.