Abraham Flexner - Flexner Report

Flexner Report

Two years later, he published the Flexner Report, which examined the state of American medical education and led to far-reaching reforms in the way doctors were trained. The Flexner report led to the closure of most rural medical schools and all but two of America's African American medical colleges. Ironically one of the schools was located in his own hometown of Louisville, Louisville National Medical College. In response to the report, some schools fired senior faculty members as part of a process of reform and renewal.

Flexner soon conducted a related study of medical education in Europe. According to Bonner (2002), Flexner's work came to be "nearly as well known in Europe as in America." With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, he worked toward restructuring the nation's medical schools. Flexner "...exerted a decisive influence on the course of medical training and left an enduring mark on some of the nation's most renowned schools of medicine." Flexner worried that "the imposition of rigid standards by accrediting groups was making the medical curriculum a monstrosity," with medical students moving through it with "little time to stop, read, work or think." Bonner (2002) calls Flexner "the severest critic and the best friend American medicine ever had."