To effectively educate medical teachers for clerkship and residency training, the international faculty development program was developed. Ten faculties of the School of Medicine participated in the program and learned about clinical education through lectures and direct observations, transforming their educational perspectives. Factors to optimize such an international faculty development program were discussed: 1) Authentic educational institution and environment, 2) matching the participants' specialty and subject at the observation site, 3) optimal combination of lectures, direct observations, and debriefing sessions, 4) mutual understanding of cultural differences, and 5) sense of community cultivated by experiencing the program for a week. Those factors suggest ways for further improvement to reform the program, promote better management, and conduct educational research on faculty development.

An oral examination using a simulated case conference format was conducted for fourth year medical students who took a practical course on clinical reasoning prior to their clinical clerkship. Although there were many disadvantages such as fewer cases and shorter testing time to use such examinations for summative purposes, we found that we could assess students' knowledge and presentation skills based on their logical reasoning. We could also comprehensively evaluate students' readiness for clerkship by applying the RIME assessment framework. We discovered the practical value of using the examination as a means of supporting learners who are facing difficulty in learning after we successfully used it to detect such learners and address their concerns. We hope that some elements of this simulated case conference can be used not only as a job preview but also as an assessment tool for pre-clinical clerkship education in other medical schools.