[Surgery in medical education. Division of surgical oncology]

Medical education is being required to make a big change over the last 10 years due to the rapidly expanding knowledge of medicine and socioeconomical demands from the public. The education system is now focusing on teaching medical students how to learn individual subjects by themselves leading to understand the concept of self learning and adult learning. It is also required for students and residents to improve clinical competence as early as possible. The purpose of this change in medical education is to produce better doctors for the future. In order to achieve our aim it is essential to have continuous education system during the pre and postgraduate periods and also to realize the importance of education. Standardized education program is also essential to be established. Evaluation system for teaching is needed to attract young doctors to teaching, otherwise enough staffs for education would not be obtained. Teaching experiences should be counted as a career pass at the time of promotion. For a surgeon clinical competence is most important task to achieve but experience of research is also important for young surgeons to become a research minded surgeon or academic surgeon who will make a breakthrough in the field of surgery in the future. It should be emphasized that dean and professors are most responsible in the development of medical education.