The end of summer and the beginning of the autumn term is always an exciting time for academics. The reasons for this are twofold. First the arrival of a new group of excited talented and enthusiastic new students is energisingeven for an old hand like me -but also because it is the main time of year for academic conferences. Attending conferences can give time for reflections which initially do not seem to have direct relevance to medical education but on further examination parallels can be

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... awn. Recently I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the American Board of Medical Specialties. I've never attended this meeting before and it was interesting to see how others are wrestling with the same problems of reaccreditation. The meeting was held in Cleveland Ohio which was not a city I have ever visited before. Arriving the day before the conference began I had time to explore the city. So early in the morning I set out to walk to the art gallery armed with my map and my iPhone. The route took me along the gloriously named Euclid Avenue and this interesting name caused me to revise what little I knew about this famous Greek mathematician. His most significant contribution is developing the principles of geometry set out in his magnum opus 'Elements'. Although many of the results in 'Elements' originated with earlier mathematicians, one of Euclid's accomplishments was to present them in a single, logically coherent framework, making it easy to use and easy to reference, including a system of rigorous mathematical proofs that remains the basis of mathematics 23 centuries later. This made me reflect that perhaps this is what we should be aiming for when writing BEME systematic reviews and AMEE guides. However, our understanding of learning is changing and given the influence of technology on the development of personal knowledge, whether anything written today will last 23 centuries is debatable. Does this mean that the understanding of mathematics has not moved on? It must have, but why are some ideas and principles so enduring and what if any would be the equivalents in medical education? Possibly 'assessment drives learning' or 'good feedback enhances performance' would be the most enduring. I'm sure many of your readers would have their own ideas and perhaps this could be an idea for an AMEE conference symposium in the future. Eventually after walking for 90 minutes I caught a bus to travel the rest of the distance along Euclid Avenue and the