Medical education in Vietnam

Vietnam is one of the most populous countries in Southeast Asia, yet it displays an unsettling lack of doctors.

Medical education is an important factor contributing to this issue, yet little is known about the system currently in place in Vietnam.

Through an extensive literary search of medical schools' and Ministry of Health's data, we have examined the current medical education system in Vietnam.

At present, there are 12 medical universities, and the general curriculum at each university follows a national framework but tends to vary from university to university. Medical training lasts either 4 or 6 years, with competitive graduates attending residency programs following graduation. While examinations are required to graduate, the lack of a national licensing exam makes it difficult to ensure that a nation-wide standard of quality exists, both at the medical universities themselves as well as amongst the doctors graduating from them.

The development and institution of a national exam would introduce a standard of training throughout Vietnam's medical education system. Further, a substantial portion of a doctor's education is in subjects that are loosely related to medicine. When looking forward it will be important to evaluate whether or not these non-medical subjects detract from the quality of medical training.