Question

Even though it has been proved that the external benefits of medical education are likely to be inframarginal (which means that they do not affect the optimal number of health professionals seeking medical education), why do you think medical education is still highly subsidized?

Answer 1

Medical education is multifactorial and complex. The raise in intrinsic education costs makes the educational institutions to increase the fees leading to subsidized costs. Medical institutions started to improve the quality of education thereby they started incorporating higher end technology in education like real time simulators, medical mannequins and clinical skills laboratories. This helps the medical students to acquire real time experience in caring patients and there by enhancing the quality of patient care.

As the cost for curriculum delivery increases rapidly, it keeps an undue stress on the educational institutions and that in turn results in increases tuition fees. On the other hand receiving subsidized funds from research committee is very difficult too.

The best solution to reduce the medical expenses and the debts among the medical students are by incorporating competency based education. Instead of students writing yearly exams they can promote to next year based on their competency.