The case for a national center for health professions education research

Overall concerns with the health care system have raised important questions concerning educating health professionals. The need to study and perhaps alter the assumptions of this education has been raised, but data on which to base programmatic change have not been generated, since neither the assumptions nor proposed educational innovations have been adequately tested. A national center for health professions education research is proposed to facilitate well-funded, peer-reviewed, and academically credible research in health professions education. The goals of the center would allow for the testing of models to provide physicians and other health professionals with education grounded in sound methodology and content.