22 Facts About Flexner Report

Flexner Report is a book-length landmark report of medical education in the United States and Canada, written by Abraham Flexner and published in 1910 under the aegis of the Carnegie Foundation.

The Flexner report has been criticized for introducing policies that encouraged systemic racism.

Flexner Report, called Carnegie Foundation Bulletin Number Four, called on American medical schools to enact higher admission and graduation standards, and to adhere strictly to the protocols of mainstream science in their teaching and research.

Flexner Report concluded that there were too many medical schools in the United States, and that too many doctors were being trained.

Flexner Report visited every one of the 155 North American medical schools then in operation, all of which differed greatly in their curricula, methods of assessment, and requirements for admission and graduation.

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When Flexner researched his report, many American medical schools were small "proprietary" trade schools owned by one or more doctors, unaffiliated with a college or university, and run to make a profit.

When Flexner researched his report, only 16 out of 155 medical schools in the United States and Canada required applicants to have completed two or more years of university education.

Flexner Report argued that the length of medical education should be four years, and its content should be what the CME agreed to in 1905.

Flexner Report recommended that the proprietary medical schools should either close or be incorporated into existing universities.

Flexner Report stated that medical schools needed be part of a larger university since a proper stand-alone medical school would have to charge too much in order to break even financially.

Flexner Report was the child of German immigrants, and had studied and traveled in Europe.

Flexner Report was well aware that one could not practice medicine in continental Europe without having undergone an extensive specialized university education.

In effect, Flexner Report demanded that American medical education conform to prevailing practice in continental Europe.

Flexner Report sought to reduce the number of medical schools in the US.

Flexner Report advocated closing all but two of the historically black medical schools.

Flexner Report's view was that black doctors should treat only black patients and should play roles subservient to those of white physicians.

Flexner Report's findings restricted opportunities for African-American physicians in the medical sphere.

Flexner Report is, as far as the human eye can see, a permanent factor in the nation.

Bonner contended that Flexner Report worked to save the two Black medical schools that were graduating most of the Black physicians at that time.

When Flexner researched his report, "modern" medicine faced vigorous competition from several quarters, including osteopathic medicine, chiropractic medicine, electrotherapy, eclectic medicine, naturopathy, and homeopathy.

Flexner Report clearly doubted the scientific validity of all forms of medicine other than that based on scientific research, deeming any approach to medicine that did not advocate the use of treatments such as vaccines to prevent and cure illness as tantamount to quackery and charlatanism.

Vision for medical education described in the Flexner Report narrowed medical schools' interests to disease, and not on the system of health care or society's health beyond disease.