The 1910 Flexner report is credited with beginning the modern era of medical education. Since that time, a regular calliope of calls for changes in the way that medical students are selected and educated has been heard. Yet authors such as Bloom and Christakis have noted that these calls for reform are 'remarkably consistent,' with perennial themes and similar recommendations. Whitehead likens this revolving pattern to a carousel, observing that "medical educators were regularly returning with fresh and un-remembering minds, to the same concerns." What are the reasons that the same "ponies go up and down," and is the current wave of curricular reforms likely to yield any different results? Will proposed reforms overcome the resistance to fundamental change that has so far stymied the reformers' stated desires to achieve a system of medical education to better serve the needs of the public?
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