Continuing medical education for the general practitioners has been activery performed. The former committee for continuing medical education of the Japan Society for Medical Education reported the objectives of continuing medical education for general practitioners. The present committee proposed learning strategies for continuing medical education for general practitioners in accordance with specific behavioral objectives of the curriculum.
It was postulated that appropriate learning strategies are necessary for physicians to provide holistic medical care in their communities, in addition to improving their medical knowledge and skills.
Learning strategies in the curriculum were also coordinated with the continuing medical education system of the Japan Medical Association.

The aim of this study is to clarify the definition and recognition on continuing medical education for administrators (or leaders for residents) of 80 university hospitals and 266 clinical training hospitals as designated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, using the questionaire consited of 5 main questions, as following:
1) On the curriculum (program) of continuing medical education in their hospitals.
2) On the continuing medical education system of Japan Medical Association.
3) On the continuing medical education activity of the specified academic societies.
4) On guide of continuing medical education for the residents.
5) On definition of continuing medical education.
Answers to a questionaire were returned from 227 institutions (65.6%)
Analyzing the results, present situation of program curricula for continuing medical education in hospitals, participation to continuing medical education system of Japan Medical Association and Academic Societies, and consideration on continuing medical education as a hospital leader were comprehensible.

The committee of continuing medical education in Japan Society for Medical Education discussed on PRA of American Medical Association [AMA]. We have first analyzed the brochure of PRA for the members of AMA, and then prepared the questionnaire for AMA. We were able to obtained the answers to the questionnaire which were sent to AMA through courtesy of Japanese Medical Association (JMA). It was realized that AMA emphasizes an importance of PRA for medical practice to the patients; nevertheless acquisition rate of PRA is actually low, and so AMA proceeds with efforts towards completion of PRA.

Objectives: Few studies examined the association between deterioration of masticatory ability assessed by objective marker and physical function. Therefore, we examined the association between salivary flow rate which is one of the objective and surrogate marker of masticatory ability and lower Timed Up & Go (TUG) performance which is one of major measurement of physical function among aging Japanese. Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled 464 Japanese aged 60e84 years old. Participants chewed tasteless and odorless gum for 5 min, calculated stimulated salivary flow rate (g/min) during all chews.The 3 m TUG was conducted, and 75th percentile value (6.8 s for men and 7.0 s for women) or higher was defined as lower TUG performance. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the association between stimulated salivary flow rate and lower TUG performance. Results: We found that the stimulated salivary flow rate tended to be negatively associated with the TUG time. We also observed significant negative association between stimulated salivary flow rate and lower TUG performance; the multivariable-adjusted OR (95% confidence interval, CIs) of lower TUG performance for the highest quartile of stimulated salivary flow rate compared with the lowest quartile was0.34 (0.16e0.69, P for trend ¼ 0.02). Further adjusting for BMI, the association was attenuated but remaind significant; the OR (95% CIs) in highest quartile was 0.37 (0.18e0.76, P for trend ¼ 0.04). Conclusions Higher stimulated salivary flow, which means well masticatory ability, was inversely associated with lower TUG performance in the aging Japanese population.