The birth of Perspectives on Medical Education

Medical education has a long history in the Netherlands and Flanders. This is not only reflected by the leading role of Dutch and Flemish universities in both undergraduate and postgraduate training, but also by the high number of scientific articles in international journals. A few examples to support these introductory statements. The national Blueprint with objectives of undergraduate medical education was first published in 1994 and contained one of the first descriptions of medical programmes in the world [1]. Soon after its publication, the Dutch Ministry of Health introduced the Blueprint as the nationwide ‘gold standard’ of medical education to be used for accreditation purposes. In 2009 the third edition of the Blueprint was published, referring to the CanMEDS competency framework as the basis for medical undergraduate training [2]. Furthermore, in the postgraduate medical specialist training, Dutch and Flemish universities appear to be enthusiastic followers of modernization task forces. The process of modernization according to the CanMEDS model is so energetic in the Netherlands and Flanders that its implementation is only a few steps behind that of our Canadian colleagues! With respect to scientific research in the area of medical education, the Netherlands is among the most active countries. In a bibliometric survey of the number of publications in international peer-reviewed journals in 2010 the Netherlands ranked number 3 after Canada and the UK. Furthermore, the list of most productive authors is led by Dutch colleagues [3]. Given the size of the country and the relatively small number of medical schools (8 in the Netherlands and 5 in Flanders), these figures characterize the prominent role of Dutch research groups in the field of medical education.