The year was 1747. The doctor on board the Salisbury, Dr. James Lindt, upset with the high number of deaths by scurvy among the mariners, planned and conducted a study comparing different therapeutic approaches. Described in his “Treatise of the Scurvy”, published in Edinburgh in 1753, his study is considered to be the first controlled clinical trial in the modern era. But the history goes even further. Clearly, without the requirements of a controlled clinical trial, the experiment, conducted during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar in the years of 500 BC in Babylonia, is cited as the first record of a medical study that guided a public health decision. A “herbivorous” diet was authorized when, contradicting what the King believed, it showed more benefits than the preferred “carnivorous” alternative.

The year was 1926. The Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges (known today as Academic Medicine) was launched described at that time by Fred Zapffe, its editor, as “the only scientific publication of its type in the world – a journal dedicated to medical education and pedagogy.” Three decades later, the first departments of medical education emerged in American universities, which many believe to be the origins of medical research. In view of the long history of clinical research, medical education research can be seen as newborn. In its few years of life, its development has been quite remarkable. The number of journals on medical education have multiplied. The Science Citation Index offers 19 publications, and the list continues to grow each year. The number of scientific article submissions to these journals has also increased significantly. For example, in the first 5 years since its foundation in 1996, Advances in Health Sciences Education had received a total of 78 submissions. In 2019 alone, the number of submissions reached 750.

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