[Educational system for medical sciences at the University of Tsukuba--with special reference to medical technology]

Three-year colleges for nursing, medical technology, and so on, have all been reorganized into four-year educational institutions in national universities. Since the reform, universities are not responsible for educating medical scientists except nurses. The new College of Nursing and Medical Technology in the University of Tsukuba has been developed along these lines. Here introduce some of its attempts and provide an opportunity to a better system. The Department has the following three characteristics: 1. Medical scientists are educated in the new Department, and the Department is closely cooperating with the School of Medicine. 2. There are courses for medical researchers concerning Molecular Pathology, Pathological Engineering and Environmental Pathology. 3. The qualification to apply to a national test for medical technologists is given to the students. Unfortunately, the system is not fully understood by the faculty or the students and does not work well because the Medical Technology Department and the Nursing Department are grouped together as a single institution. Moreover, this flaw in the system prevents the Medical Technology Department from actively promoting highly advanced medical sciences, such as organ transplantation, artificial organs, gene therapy, reproductive medicines, and so forth (Fig. 1). Few specialists exist who can bridge achievements in basic or advanced sciences and clinical application. Serious social problems about food safety, care systems, post-genome medicine, the youth, and so on, have to be dealt with, too. We are thus planning to separate the Department as the College of Medical Science (Fig. 2) and link it to the educational system in the master's and doctoral programs (Fig. 3). This model will successfully educate a new type of medical specialists.