Only technical knowledge is taught at medical school. How medical professionals should behave and emphasize with patients is not taught. It is strange that the purely scientific has dominated medical education for so long. Without the incentive to care for and protect patients, it is difficult to acquire the ability to apply medical knowledge and skills. In other words, emotion and knowledge cannot be separated in medical education. Being full of consideration for the patient constitutes the affective basis of medicine. This attitude should be taught repeatedly in clinical practice. The best model for aspiring doctors is the good conduct and attitudes of other doctors senior to them.

The interval between undergraduate medical education and graduate medical education causes residents to become disorganized when they start their first-year residency programs.This disorganized transition may be stressful for residents and preceptors and may cause resident to make medical errors.We performed a pilot study to examine the degree to which program directors agree about the abilities required for the start of the first of year residency.
1) We asked the residency directors at university hospitals and residency hospitals nationwide (343 institutions) to indicate what abilities residents were expected to have at various stages of the residency program.The data received were then analyzed.
2) A total of 134 residency directors (39%) returned the questionnaire.We calculated the percentage (expectation rate) of institutions that reported expected prerequisites at the start of the first year of residency and calculated the accumulated values (cumulative rate) of the percentages.
3) Only 43 (30%) of 141 abilities upon the completion of residency-preparatory programs had a cumulative rate of more than 50%.
4) Domains for which the expectation rate was more than 50% at the start of residency were medicine and related knowledge and practical skills for obtaining physical measurements.
5) Physical examination and practical skills for which the cumulative rate was less than 50% on completion of residency-preparatory programs were those for the reproductive and urinary systems and pediatrics and the insertion and maintenance of intravenous lines and indwelling urinary catheters.
6) Disparities are likely between the abilities of residents and the tasks expected of them upon entry into a residency program.This problem must be urgently addressed through medical education and graduate medical education.

We used questionnaires to study the present status of undergraduate clinical training at medical schools in Japan in February 1996. Completed questionnaires were returned by 81%(65) of 80 medical schools and approximately 54%(1, 328 clinical departments) of the schools. The results were as follows. Courses for early clinical exposure in the 1st or 2nd year were provided at 83% of the 65 schools; clinical clerkships in the 5th and 6th years were provided at 28%. Specific behavioral objectives for clinical training were clearly shown to students and teaching staff at 75% of schools. Clinical procedures that medical students were permitted to perform were listed and announced to students and teaching staffs at 66% of schools. Patients were informed and gave consent for clinical training of students at 77% of schools. Essential knowledge and skills of students were assessed before the start of clinical training at 40% of schools, and summative assessment was made at the end of the training at 72%. Training of clinical teaching staff for faculty development was conducted at 51% of schools. Eightynine percent of schools reported a shortage of clinical teaching staff. Similar results were obtained in the survey of clinical departments of university hospitals: most departments complained of a shortage of teaching staff, of students not being active, and of students not being competent to enter clinical training courses. To improve clinical training, the introduction of clinical clerkships and cooperation with community facilities outside universities were the main issues.

A questionnaire survey on clinical procedures performed by medical students on patients during undergraduate clinical training was conducted in february 1996. Responses were received from 1328 clinical departments of university cospitals at 80 medical schools. Basic clinical procedures that medical students were permitted to perform on patients were recommended by a committee of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. These procedures are divided into three categories: level 1; procedures that medical students are permitted to perform under the supervision of an instructor; level 2; procedures medical students are permitted to perform with supervision under certain conditions; and level 3; procedures for which medical students are generally limited to assisting instructors or to attending and observing patients. The status of performance of the procedures was investigated. Of level-1 procedures (36 procedures), 8 were performed by medical students at more than 80 % of university hospitals, 19 were performed at from 50% to 70%, 9 were performed at less than 50%. Of level-2 procedures (15 procedures), 8 were performed at from 55% to 79% of hospitals and 7 were performed at less than 50%. For level-3 procedures (15 procedures), medical students were permitted to assist and observe 4 procedures at from 82% to 86% of hospitals, 11 at from 50% to 79%, and 1 at40%. In addition, students were permitted to perform 13 level-3 procedures at from 10% to 44% of hospitals and to perform 3 at from 6% to 9%. In many clinical departments, other kinds of procedures specific to the departments were adopted. Teaching media, such as standardized patients' computer-assisted instruction models, and animal materials, were used, and facilities in the community cooperated in training. Respondents wrote many suggestions and opinions about the difficulties and concerns with the legality of students' performing clinical procedures, patients' consent or agreement, minimal essentials of clinical competence of students, the shortage of instructors, and the training and guidelines for instructors.

We surveyed in every medical university in Japan on how attitudes development is adopted in its medical educational curriculum so far. There are several universities which in some way have already adopted attitudes development into curriculum or teaching items. However, hours of lesson and the contents are so differed among them. Moreover, both evaluation of these lessons by trainees and judgement as far the educational effect by trainers are not programmed satisfactorily. Some universities complain of manpower shortage, difficulties of fixing curriculum, or shortage of total lesson hours, so that they say they cannot dare work on this attempt. But, there are still an increasing number of universities ready to start their programs, where education arranged by non-medical teachers, practical medical experience at the real front, the introduction of simulated patient (SP) into education, and so on are considerd to be carried out.
Thus, we suppose it is time to have and share some guideline for adequate attitudes development education at this moment. And at the same time, a national system to encourage the medical education, including trainning SP, is urgently required to be planned.

Clinical training programs play an extremely important role in the new postgraduate clinical training system introduced in 2004 because facilities for clinical training now include various health-related institutions in addition to the university hospitals and special hospitals for clinical training used in the previous system. Although educational goals have been established by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, trainees may have difficulty achieving these goals, even under the guidance of staff at the various facilities. There are differences in the function and quality of health-related institutions in the community. For the practical and convenient application of educational goals, we have attempted develop a “model program” to supplement the objectives indicated by the learning goals with more specific objectives. These supplementary objectives can be modified by individual institutions. We hope that this “model program” contributes to the development of objectives for each institution and helps improve the quality of the postgraduate training system in Japan.

In 1991, the committee on postgraduate clinical training proposed revised behavioral objectives for basic clinical training in the initial two years. We present here a model for a clinical training program that should enable most residents to attain these objectives within two years.
The program begins with orientation for 1-2 weeks, including a workshop on team care, and nursing practice.
Basic clinical skills for primary care and emergency managements should be learned by experience during rotations through various clinical specialities. All staff members, even senior residents, should participate in teaching beginning residents in hospitals.