[A need for undergraduate education for laboratory medicine in medical schools]

Today, there are many problems to be solved in the curricula in the medical school education in Japan. Generally, the typical classical curriculum of the undergraduate studies in medical education is divided into two courses such as the basic and the clinical medicine. Recently, some schools, have adapted an integrated education program through a six school year course of studies including the two-year premedical course and introduced an early exposure system in clinical medicine. Department of Laboratory Medicine (Clinical Pathology) has a central medical laboratory where clinical practice tests, especially specimen tests, are performed by medical laboratory technicians trained in laboratory technology. The central laboratory system was introduced by the GHQ of the Allied Occupation Forces after World War II in Japan. This was first established in 1950 at the National Tokyo First Hospital. Afterwards, this system was adopted in almost all hospitals in Japan. Consequently, clinical testing was transferred from doctors to medical laboratory technicians and this practice brought a decrease in the doctor's level of the current knowledge or techniques of laboratory testing. Therefore, education in Laboratory Medicine in the medical schools, should be refocused to train medical students to be a clinician who understands the test principles, selects suitable tests and interprets the results, reduces the number of test(s) for clinical practice. This clinical training will be for the physical, mental and economic welfare of the patient. The actual changes of the curriculum which have been made with time for Laboratory Medicine at Tokushima University Medical School, are introduced and discussed.