The present state and problems of graduate-entry programs (GEP) in national medical schools in Japan

It is not certain whether graduate-entry program (GEP) or non-graduate-entry program (non-GEP) in medical education is desirable to foster excellent medical physicians in Japan. In order to clarify the present state and problems of GEP, we visited 27 national medical schools which have introduced limited term college graduate-entry program and discussed with the deans, the education committee and administration affairs.GEP students are elder and usually study harder than regular non-GEP course students. Therefore, they got the higher grades at 1-2 classes of GEP course than the regular non-GEP course students. However, some GEP students lost motivation to study medicine and got poor grades at higher class. There was no definite difference of the final grades at the graduation between GEP and non-GEP students. Most of GEP students became medical practitioners and few students chose physician scientist majoring in basic medicine.We did not find any advantage of GEP compared with regular non-GEP. The results show that the introduction of GEP throughout Japan should be discussed carefully.