[Globalization of higher education in Europe. The precursor of changes in Chilean medical education].

At the present time, higher education is a central process shaping the society of knowledge. The mutual strength of society and education influence worldwide changes. Globalization, that mainly embraces politics and commerce, is also promoting changes in professional training, modifying programs, structures and the organization of superior education.

[Bioethical aspects of health care reform in Chile. II. Discrimination, free election and informed consent].

Bioethical issues emerge each time health care reform projects are discussed. These affect diverse moral values and principles and have an impact on cultural, social and political areas. Thus, they demand more than just organizational, financial or administrative solutions.

[Bioethical aspects of the Health Care Reform in Chile. The problems of access and costs of resources ].

During the process of health reforms there is always the concern that patients rights might be harmed. The bill that is being discussed in the Chilean Parliament contains an special issue dedicated to patient's obligations and rights. However, on the author's opinion, the best protection for patient rights rests on adequate financing and access to a reasonably, good and qualified health care.

[Masters of Chilean Internal Medicine].

Master of internal Medicine is the highest award granted by the Chilean Society of Internal Medicine (Sociedad Médica de Santiago) to its members. This article outlines the sense and transcendence of this award and provides an abridged, certainly incomplete, data of the recipients since 1981 when this award was first given. Those who have received it are not the only ones that have the attributes to deserve such distinction.

[Restoring medicine as a scientific and humanist profession].

There is an urgent need, in our society, to recover the real meaning of medicine as a complex of science and humanistic values committed to person's health care. Following the initiative of the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American College of Physicians and the American Society of Internal Medicine (ACP-ASIM) and the European Federation of Internal Medicine, the Medical Professionalism Project has launched a comprehensive declaration to rephrase the social contract between medicine and the society, emphasising the principles and responsibilities that must orient the thoughts and actions of the good physician. The importance, soundness and opportunity of this chart, stimulates an ample dissemination of these concepts and to incorporate them as moral assets, integrating the quality, as experts on a scientific discipline, with the humanistic values provided in these era of increasing bioethical demands.

[Looking for the physicians that our countries need: emphasis on communication and training of academics].

Changes in physicians education and practice induce, nowadays persistent modifications in program's curricula and contents and in learning methodologies, in almost all medical schools and countries. In many of these, and in Chile, this process shows some peculiarities due to the unusual proliferation of medical schools and their differing proposals about the profile of the professional training based on epidemiological considerations and teaching resources. The institutional initiatives leading to reforms, have defined quality and pertinence of these programs and profiles, as it has been the case of the curricular renewal in the University of Chile School of Medicine.

[A competitive fund of development to improve the quality of university education in Chile. Area of health care].

In 1997, the Chilean Government and the International Bank for Development convened on a strategy to improve Chilean university education. It was based on quality improvement, effectiveness, relevancy and innovation on university education programs. A US$ 245 millions fund was afforded, for a five years competitive grants program, among certain traditional Universities and Technical Education Institutes.

[Professional formation and its accreditation in medicine. A paradigm to sustain public confidence].

Sustaining quality control of learning programs for health professions has become a central issue in university systems, under the pressure of an unexpected merging of new medical schools in Chile, during the last decade, and the massive arrival of other Latin American physicians. Accreditation of institutions and programs represents valid safeguards used in most countries where professional training processes take place. Due guarantee of its quality is required to assure proper health care to people.