title: Complexity and health professions education: a basic glossary.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The study of health professions education in the context of complexity science and complex adaptive systems involves different concepts and terminology that are likely to be unfamiliar to many health professions educators. A list of selected key terms and definitions from the literature of complexity science is provided to assist readers to navigate familiar territory from a different perspective.
  include agent, attractor, bifurcation, chaos, co-evolution, collective variable, complex adaptive systems, complexity science, deterministic systems, dynamical system, edge of chaos, emergence, equilibrium, far from equilibrium, fuzzy boundaries, linear system, non-linear system, random, self-organization and self-similarity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, Educational Development and Research, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA. smennin@gmail.com
authors.forename: Stewart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mennin
mesh_terms: D004014:Dictionaries as Topic; D004501:Education, Medical; D006801:Humans