Summary

Complexity is defined as “a state or character of diverse and intermingled elements”. Physicians needs to link the biological, physical, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions. On a daily basis, medical decisions can be simple, complicated or even complex. Complex actions are required in order to face the increase in chronic, sometimes multiple, pathologies in the same person. Thus, the individual scale (the patient), the collective scale (multi-professional and interdisciplinary work) and the systemic scale (care provision) must be integrated. Physicians, through their teaching and practice, and the system, through its organization, are able together to integrate the growing complexity of healthcare. At the end of their training, future doctors go through a three-step evolution: acquiring experience through practice, reflection on their action, then eventually questioning the transformation to be made to their practices. The teaching of complexity in medicine must also integrate a humanistic culture, fostering the student’s curiosity for the arts and the beauty of science. In order for the student to succeed in grasping the complexity of reality, medical education must mobilize: the faculties mandate to serve faculties as well as their social responsibility, scientific and clinical high standards interdisciplinarity, and the interdependence of individual and systemic dimensions.