Trustingly bewildered. How first-year medical students make sense of their learning experience in a traditional, preclinical curriculum.

Trust in the educational system, within a substandard learning environment, created cognitive dissonance that students resolved through rationalization, whereby they negated that factual overload and lack of relevance, reflection, and personal feedback was problematic. The cost of this mechanism is possibly that inferior teaching is perceived as normal, necessary, and good enough. If so, these future physicians' ability to critically evaluate and create quality in medical education and practice, may be weakened.