Advances in genetic medicine has rapidly been applied to clinical practice. However, many medical students have not studied biology or genetics in high school. There is little chance to think in Japan medical education about how to treat genetic information appropriately in the setting of clinical medicine. The timing and contents of a clinical genetics education program in medical school has hardly been discussed in Japan. This paper discusses the clinical genetics educationduring the medical-science and clinical-medicine stages at Nippon Medical School.
1) An exercise on information gathering and role-play (for 180 minutes) about color vision deficiency were performed during the second-year molecular genetics course.
2) A clinical genetics course (45 minutes 18 classes) in the fourth year was started in 2002 as a part of an integrated medical curriculum with courses classified by organ system.
3) This clinical genetics course included systematic lectures for knowledge acquisition, lectures by patient support groups, exercises in drawing pedigrees, role-play, and discussions of ethical issues. Students evaluated this course favorably.
4) Some topics in clinical genetics can be effectively presented at an early stage of medical education as part of an introduction to medicine. To maximize the educational effects and increase the possibility that students understand the importance of medical genetics, clinical genetics education in medical school will be performed after the student have grasped a basic understanding of diseases through lectures about clinical subjects.