Abstract
Three courses in 1997,and four in 1998 were dealing with bioethical issues and available to first year students at Niigata University School of Medicine. However, these were elective courses, or a compulsory course in which ethical topics were lectured as a small unit. At the clinical stage, a compulsory independent bioethics course was established for 5th year students in 1997. The curriculum seemed to be vertically integrated in that courses were programmed at both preclinical and clinical stages, and multidisciplinary teaching was provided in that teachers of medical and non-medical departments took part in the courses. The horizontal integration into the medical curriculum can be the most serious defect, because of the lack of the opportunity for medical teachers to be trained to participate in bioethics education. To establish a core organization will be essential to refine the program, but will be hard to be achieved without the support of national policy.
