Global Minimum Essential Requirement in Medical Education
Critical thinking and research

The ability to critically evaluate existing knowledge, technology and information is necessary for solving problems, since physicians must continually acquire new scientific information and new skills if they are to remain competent. Good medical practice requires the ability to think scientifically and use scientific methods. The medical graduate should therefore be able to:

• demonstrate a critical approach, constructive skepticism, creativity and a research-oriented attitude in professional activities;
• understand the power and limitations of the scientific thinking based on information obtained from different sources in establishing the causation, treatment and prevention of disease;
  
• use personal judgments for analytical and critical problem solving and seek out information rather than to wait for it to be given;
  
• identify, formulate and solve patients' problems using scientific thinking and based on obtained and correlated information from different sources;
• understand the roles of complexity, uncertainty and probability in decisions in medical practice;
• formulate hypotheses, collect and critically evaluate data, for the solution of problems.

To retain and advance competencies acquired in medical school, graduates must be aware of their own limitations, the need for regularly repeated self-assessment, acceptance of peer evaluation and continuous undertaking of self-directed study. These personal development activities permit the continued acquisition and use of new knowledge and technologies throughout their professional careers.

The 'Essentials' alone are not likely to change graduates' competencies unless they are linked to evaluation of students' competencies. Therefore, assessment tools for the evaluation of educational outcomes are essential for the implementation of this document. This will ensure that graduates, wherever they are trained in the world, have similar core competencies at the start of further graduate medical education (specialty training) or when they begin to practice medicine under the appropriate, nationally determined supervision. Such tools are under development by the specially established IIME Task Force for Assessment.

The presented 'Global Minimum Essential Requirements' are considered an instrument for improvement of the quality of the medical education and indirectly of the medical practice. It is hoped that the IIME project will have significant influence on medical school curricula and educational processes, paving the road to the competence-oriented medical education.