Challenges and Opportunities in Medical Education: Insights from a Narrative Comparison of an American and a Spanish Medical School

This article adopts a focused comparative perspective on two medical schools to illuminate shared strengths and systemic challenges across educational and regulatory contexts. Undergraduate medical education at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (USA) and the Universidad Miguel Hernández (Spain) is analyzed, highlighting common strengths, including solid biomedical foundations, early clinical exposure, and the growing adoption of competency-based approaches. Despite these assets, both institutions face convergent challenges, including rigid curricula, faculty constraints, and difficulties sustaining student engagement in active learning, exacerbated by rapid digital transformation. The analysis supports recommendations to increase curricular flexibility and personalized instruction, strengthen student-centered and interprofessional learning, optimize educational technology, and reform assessment toward continuous feedback and the demonstration of clinical competence.