A therapeutic intervention for an ailing medical education: The values prism model as proof of concept.

Abstract

Purpose: To articulate proof of concept in relation to a complex pedagogical values intervention for a range of medical education's historically accumulated symptoms.

Methods: Using a discursive approach, symptoms that hinder development of medical education are set out. Such symptoms rest with the instrumentality of current pedagogical approaches, supressing potential. A 'cure' is articulated - that the dominant values complex of instrumentalism is raised in quality through embracing ethical, aesthetic, political, and transcendental (meaning) values. Key to this is the use of language in clinical encounters, where the productive metaphor count is repressed in instrumental-technical approaches but multiplied in embracing other values and qualities. This 'Values Prism' model shows instrumentalism passing through an expansive educational prism to create expansion in types and qualities.

Results and conclusions: Proof of concept is achieved. The Values Prism model can be adapted for any undergraduate medicine curriculum as a process model - a set of values that permeate the curriculum beyond the dominant instrumental. The enhanced and expanded curriculum acts in a translational capacity.