In March 1986, an academic program on family care medicine was started at Jikei University School of Medicine upon consultation with Prof. Masakazu Abe, then President of the Jikei University School of Medicine, and Dr. Tomojiro Nagai, founder of the Medical Practitioners' Association of Japan. The program offers two elective seminars on family care medicine in the spring and summer for 4th and 5th year medical students. The objective was to give students opportunities to visit and observe medical care provided by practitioners, to teach them the importance of the function of family physicians, and to offer them options in their future careers.
The total number of participating students from the first through 20th seminars was 121, with a maximum number of participants per seminar of 11 and a minimum of 3 (average of 6). A total of 37 instructors took part in the program by giving from 1 to 18 seminars per instructor (average of 3.3). We found these seminars to be highly educational not only for the students but also for the instructing physicians.