Article Over the past two decades, all eight South African medical schools (see

Map (Fig. 1) and Table I) have undertaken renewal of their MB ChB educational programmes. As I write this in mid-2010, all programmes are settled and have been accredited by the Undergraduate Education and Training Committee of the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). Nevertheless, the educational leadership at all universities continues to undertake steady evaluation and research with a view to refinement of their educational offerings and assessment strategies. In this paper, I seek to outline the triggers to medical educational transformation in South Africa, then to show the options selected, and finally to posit the successes that South African medical schools have achieved, while highlighting the challenges that remain. The main triggers to educational reform were: • The acknowledged ‘ills ’ of the so-called ‘traditional ’ curricula devel-oped, and hardly modified, over nearly a century ago following th