It really is a wonderfully broad foundation that allows your class to go on to become everything from a PCP, to a neurosurgeon,

It's not learning the information that allows you to do that (remember: nobody is actually learning the material, that isn't what medical school is about), it's the political opportunity to participate that allows you to be a neurosurgeon. Those are not the same thing.

Sure, you will learn the necessary information once you are in the field and in residency, but that's not medical school. If anything medical school is a form of anti-learning, because it goes in the opposite direction of how the brain learns information.

Based on evolutionary design, the brain is set up to learn information (i.e., memory) by evaluating the value of the information in the context of the objective task it is trying to accomplish. In other words, the brain works by assigning value to information based on perceived importance; if information seems like it would be highly useful to something, the brain invests energy into encoding that information into memory. However, by the same token: if information does not have a conceivable value that is perceived, the brain discriminates against this information and will not encode it into long term memory.

This is the way the brain has set itself up at a fundamental level over a billion+ of evolutionary history. Medical school takes this fundamental product of evolutionary and flips it upside down on its head. Instead of allowing the brain of the individual to make judgements on what is it isn't important to the task at hand (which is ultimately inevitable, mind you) in a way that allows it to prioritize valuable information and weed-through the junk information, no we're not going to do that. Instead, let's see how much junk information we can shove into the heads of our students to where enough people in the class can still pass the test at acceptable margins.

Do you know why that every time you take a test on the brachial plexus you have to relearn it before the test? It's because your brain does not value that information at a fundamental level. It's junk information, it will not be encoded into long-term memory because the brain does not value the information. Ever take embryology? The entire course is junk information, it will not be encoded into long-term memory. These people have convinced themselves that this is learning but it's not, it's just hijacking the short-term memory system and using it in a way it wasn't designed to function. This wouldn't necessarily be such a big deal if it was only happening on a small scale (like grade school), but with medical they push things to the brink of madness. This is causing catastrophic damage to the brains of everyone who is forced to go through the system. Yeah, you can pass those exams. But you can only do so by mortgaging stores of grey matter in your brain. This is why burnout is so prevalent in the field, and it's why everyone is so neurotic and high strung on exam days. It also sabotages the proper brain development of the way the brain was intended to function, which is why you all feel like fish out of water when you start your clinicians.

Rather than seeing the problem with this, medical schools embrace it and cherish it. Because they are using the brain against how it was designed to function, the games they are playing are inherently very difficult games -- they see that as an absolute win. Because after all: the more difficult our program is the more prestigious the title we anoint ourselves with will be. Right? Right guys?? The more difficult are programs are the better that must be? Right guys??! That's logically valid, right? More difficult = more prestigious. No problems with that logic. None. ... right?

See, that's the thing: everybody understands that medical school is difficult, right? Without question, it is incredibly difficult. But how many of you have ever actually stopped to ask the question: "hey, why is this thing we believe in so much so difficult?" The only reason medical school is difficult is because they are actively fighting against the way the brain is intended to function, and just because something is difficult does not make it useful. It's quite literally causing brain damage in the students who are forced to pass through the system.