In undergraduate medical education there is a trend towards the development of ‘core’ curricula. The aim is to facilitate the teaching of essential and relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes. This contrasts with traditional medical school courses, where the emphasis was on detailed factual knowledge, often with little obvious clinical relevance. In addition, students’ learning is now commonly examined using objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs), which again assess the practical use of knowledge, rather than the regurgitation of ‘small print’
