Reframing medical education research: let's make the publishable meaningful and the meaningful publishable.

摘要

A welcome and healthy debate has been opened up by the recent contrasting opinions articulated in the commentaries by Bligh and Brice and Montrouxe and Rees2 in this journal. Bligh and Brice argue that if we are to compete in the world of biomedical research, we need to produce more robust, understandable and measurable outcomes to appease funders, readers and practitioners. Montrouxe and Rees, on the other hand, suggest that, rather than perceiving our work as a variant of biomedical research, medical education researchers and funders need to accept that the purpose of much of what we research and study is less about clearly advising practice and more about understanding processes and theory building.