Trends of medical education in Japan

This article introduces recent trends in medical education in Japan, from undergraduate education through continuing education, and explains changes in the number of medical schools and in the content of the curriculum. Some obstacles to the implementation of changes, particularly in undergraduate medical education, are discussed. Now that Japan has become relatively developed in the quantity of its health manpower and also socioeconomically, a change must be directed towards qualitative reorganization and rearrangement in medical education in line with the objectives posed for the new century. The establishment of something new is difficult; to change something old and established, however, is much more difficult. In Japan, while some new designs in the curriculum are found in almost all the new schools, any fundamental change in the established curriculum in the old schools can be found only rarely, and attempts at changing the established curriculum frequently encountered resistance in the old schools.