Abstract
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.
