How the Flexner Report Changed Medicine

Stuff You Should Know

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.5 • 82.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

The Flexner Report shook up medicine in the United States when it was released in 1910 and it's never been the same since. For better or worse.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:02.5	Guaranteed Human.
0:05.5	Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of IHeart Radio.
0:15.1	Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jared Jir Binks is here, too.
0:20.7	And this is Stuff You Should know about the Flexner Report.
0:24.7	That's right.
0:25.8	This was a suggestion by my wife.
0:29.7	Oh, that's a good one.
0:31.0	Yeah, Emily, of course, everyone knows if they listen to the show as an organic gardener and an herbalist.
0:40.6	She said, has long asked me to do one on the Flexner report, which is a report written in 1910 that did a lot of things, basically
0:49.2	kind of revamped how medicine worked in the United States moving forward in medical school in
0:53.9	particular.
0:55.1	Right.
0:55.3	But Emily was interested because another thing it did, a byproduct, was it basically
1:00.8	completely squashed what we would now call alternative medicine, homeopathy, basically saying
1:08.4	it has zero value, and we're not doing that anymore.
1:12.6	It sure did, Biff.
1:14.6	Yeah, and it was also racist and sexist.
1:17.9	It was definitely of its time.
1:20.0	This was a document produced in 1910 for sure.
1:22.7	Yeah.
1:22.9	And it definitely stinks of eugenics and all that.
	...

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