Since the World Health Organization identified interprofessional education (IPE) as an important component in primary health care in the 1980s, medical and health sciences educators have continued to debate factors for implementing effective IPE in the classroom. Although IPE research is widespread internationally, few studies have been done in South Korea. This study explored the current status of IPE and examined factors that influence IPE in South Korea. A total of 30 (70%) out of 41 medical education experts in medical schools participated. Forty-seven percent of the participants reported that they allocated less than 5% of their time implementing IPE in the curriculum of their schools throughout the 4 years of medical school. Although all experts (100%) agreed that IPE is essential for medical students, they expressed practical difficulties in implementing IPE in the current education system. Factors that influence IPE are scheduling and curriculum (e.g., rigid curriculum vs. providing learning environment) and attitudes (e.g., lack of reciprocal respect vs. willingness to change). In addition, participants reported that communication skills and collaborative practice employing clinical practice or role-playing would be appropriate education methods and content for IPE in the future. The findings of this study provide a foundation for the implementation of IPE in South Korea. Future research directions for IPE in medical, nursing, and pharmacy schools are discussed.
Cooperative Behavior ; Curriculum ; Education ; Education, Medical ; Humans ; Interprofessional Relations ; Korea ; Learning ; Nursing ; Primary Health Care ; Professionalism ; Schools, Medical ; Schools, Pharmacy ; Students, Medical ; World Health Organization

BACKGROUND: Pharmacy curriculum change was made from a 4-year program to a 2+4 year program in year 2009 in Korea. The change has resulted in more educational exposures on patient-centered practice environments for about 1,400 hours in the last year of the professional pharmacy program. When the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak hit Seoul and suburban areas and propagated to other provinces in Korea, emergency response to avoid student infection in the pharmacy practice sites became an urgent issue. While other health professional programs such as medicine and nursing had activated emergency preparedness manuals, timely and clear guidelines were not disseminated to all pharmacy programs and protective measures largely relied on individual pharmacy program. METHODS: A survey was developed by the Committee on Pharmacy Practice Experience Programs in the Korean College of Clinical Pharmacy to document the status of pharmacy programs during the Korea MERS outbreak in 2015. The 10-question survey was distributed to the pharmacy practice experience coordinators to 34 out of 35 pharmacy schools in Korea by emails. RESULTS: Our findings showed that 82.4% of the program coordinators (28/34) responded to the survey, 96.4% of the programs did not have emergency preparedness manuals, administrative meetings were held in 89.3% of the pharmacy programs, the rotation schedules were modified or withheld in 53.6% of schools, and the changes were mostly observed from the programs classified as MERS outbreak regions. CONCLUSION: Further needs in establishing the emergency preparedness manual should be explored for pharmacy education stakeholders.
Appointments and Schedules ; Civil Defense ; Coronavirus Infections* ; Curriculum ; Education* ; Education, Pharmacy ; Electronic Mail ; Emergencies ; Health Occupations ; Humans ; Korea ; Middle East* ; Nursing ; Pharmacy* ; Schools, Pharmacy ; Seoul

Observation of the current Korean medical education and training system shows that certain negative traits of unchangeable solidification engraft themselves so deeply into the overarching system that they are now hampering the state of the national health welfare. Focusing only on undergraduate medical education, we can point out some glaring side-effects that should be of concern to any stakeholder. For instance, a graduate can legally begin his career as an independent practitioner immediately after passing the licensing exam and return to the old stuck school-year system of 2-year-premedical and 4-year-medical programs where outcome-based and integrated curricula are incomplete and unsatisfactory. In terms of learning opportunities, the balance between patient care and public health, as well as that between in-hospital highly specialized practice and community-based general practice, has worsened. Every stakeholder should be aware of these considerations in order to obtain the insight to forge a new direction. Moreover, our medical schools must prepare our students to take on the global roles of patient care within the Fourth Industrial Revolution, health advocacy for the imminent super-aged society, and education and research in the bio-health industry, by building and applying the concept of academic medicine. We will need to invest more resources, including educational specialists, into the current undergraduate medical education system in order to produce proper outcomes, smart curriculum, innovative methods of teaching and learning, and valid and reliable monitoring and evaluation. The improved quality of undergraduate medical education is the starting point for the success of the national system for public health and medical care as a whole, and therefore its urgency and significance should be emphasized to the public. The medical society should go beyond fixing what is broken and usher in a new era of cooperation and collaboration that invites other health professionals, governmental partners, law-makers, opinion leaders, and the general public in its steps toward the future.
Cooperative Behavior ; Curriculum ; Education ; Education, Medical ; Education, Medical, Undergraduate ; General Practice ; Glare ; Health Occupations ; Humans ; Learning ; Licensure ; Patient Care ; Public Health ; Schools, Medical ; Societies, Medical ; Specialization

PURPOSE: It aimed at determining whether emotional intelligence is a predictor for success in a medical school program and whether the emotional intelligence construct correlated with other markers for admission into medical school. METHODS: Three databases (PubMed, CINAHL, and ERIC) were searched up to and including July 2016, using relevant terms. Studies written in English were selected if they included emotional intelligence as a predictor for success in medical school, markers of success such as examination scores and grade point average and association with success defined through traditional medical school admission criteria and failures, and details about the sample. Data extraction included the study authors and year, population description, emotional intelligence I tool, outcome variables, and results. Associations between emotional intelligence scores and reported data were extracted and recorded. RESULTS: Six manuscripts were included. Overall, study quality was high. Four of the manuscripts examined emotional intelligence as a predictor for success while in medical school. Three of these four studies supported a weak positive relationship between emotional intelligence scores and success during matriculation. Two of manuscripts examined the relationship of emotional intelligence to medical school admissions. There were no significant relevant correlations between emotional intelligence and medical school admission selection. CONCLUSION: Emotional intelligence was correlated with some, but not all, measures of success during medical school matriculation and none of the measures associated with medical school admissions. Variability in success measures across studies likely explains the variable findings.
Emotional Intelligence* ; School Admission Criteria ; Schools, Medical* ; United States

OBJECTIVES: The most frequently cited health related slogan in North Korea is that socialistic medicine is preventive medicine. It implies that North Korea puts preventive medicine at the operational center of its national health care system. This study aimed at examining and comparing preventive medicine practices in North Korea with those of South Korea. METHODS: Efforts have been made to obtain a textbook for analysis its contents. Many people have iassisted in the study by joining the interview. Some of these people are as follows: a former professor of PyongYang Medical School, NK physicians living in South Korea, WHO staffs, diplomatic officials, etc. The major items of analysis consisted of industrial medicine and hygiene, nutrition, school health, epidemiology, health statistics and heath policy & management. RESULTS: Public health philosophy is finely rooted and well integrated in the operation of the North Korean national health care system, particularly in the area of industrial medicine and hygiene. Preventive medicine with a strong health surveillance system spanning a number of broad social organizations is a major tool to improve the health of the people in North Korea. The emphasis on preventive medicine has a close relationship with the 'Juche Philosophy' and the shortage of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment. To cope with the shortage problem, North Korean health workers are encouraged to grow medicinal herbs. We have found that they put little effort into teaching newly emerging diseases, such as AIDS, VDT syndrome, hazards of EMF, and agricultural chemical poisonings. Of the subjects of the preventive medicine text, 78.9% coincide with those of South Korean industrial health manuals and 34.2% with South Korean epidemiology texts. However, an absolute difference was found to exist between the heath policies and management systems. CONCLUSION: In North Korea, the concept of preventive medicine functions as the basic philosophic strategy of the national health care system. It differs greatly from the South Korean system in both practice and educational content. Its contribution to society is simply incomparable to that of South Korea. More communication and further study is called for in order to improve the preventive medicine practices in the future.
Delivery of Health Care ; Democratic People's Republic of Korea* ; Epidemiology ; Hygiene ; Korea ; Occupational Health ; Occupational Medicine ; Philosophy ; Plants, Medicinal ; Poisoning ; Preventive Medicine* ; Public Health ; School Health Services ; Schools, Medical

Biomedical Research ; Education, Medical ; Schools, Medical ; Singapore ; Universities

The written examination that is being used as the only tool to assess the learning ability of the students in Korea tests the degree to which each student has mastered the learning objectives. Idealy, the examination should test the students' in three major categories of objectives ; cognitive, motor-skills and affective area, and include various types of question items. In reality, however, the tests are very much simplified both in objective categories and types of question items simply because of the carelessness and conveniences of teachers. This study analyzes the pattern of objective categories, types of question items, and the number of question items of a mid-term examination of one medical school in Seoul. Fifty junior faculties from 50 departments and teaching units were asked to assess the question items of their own departmental examination after a guideline had been given by the authors. Major findings as obtained from the study are as follows ; 1. More than half (56.4%) of the test items were related to the cognitive area and only 10.8% of all the test items were related to motor-skills. Test items of pre-med courses were much more ideal than those of other medical and nursing courses in distribution of objective categories. Only 4.7% of the items of clinical medical courses were for evaluation of motor-skills. 2. In types of question items, 57.1% were essay type and the rest 43.9% were selection type. Test items of clinical medical courses were adopting the most ideal pattern in types of test items by having more than 4 different types of question items. 3. Average number of question items per teaching subject was 27.3 (range : 6-71). Some departments and teaching units were giving students too many test items in a given time period (50 minutes). In conclusion, written examination in a medical college varies in testing students' learning objectives, and types and number of test items by departments and teaching units. It is supported that before making test items, consideration on learning objective categories, types of question items and the number of question items in very much needed.
Humans ; Korea ; Learning* ; Nursing ; Schools, Medical ; Seoul*

In the United Kingdom, 4-year graduate-only medical education programmes (Graduate Entry Programme, GEP) started in 2000, and are running in 16 medical schools with over 800 students annually. This study presents the grounds for introduction of the GEP, and explores its benefits in increasing the medical workforce and widening participation in medical education. An increase in medical student numbers was proposed to cope with the pressing shortage of British doctors and the growing demand for doctors, and the GEP was introduced as a flexible and cost-effective way to meet this demand. It has contributed to increasing the diversity of students in medical schools and widening access to students from more varied social and educational backgrounds. In the United Kingdom, the GEP was established as a supplementary means of providing medical education, and it is unlikely to totally replace traditional 5- or 6-year programmes.
Education, Medical ; Great Britain ; Humans ; Phosphatidylethanolamines ; Running ; School Admission Criteria ; Schools, Medical ; Students, Medical

PURPOSE: This paper aims to introduce the design of multiple mini-interviews (MMIs) as a tool to assess medical school applicants' attributes in alignment with the school's educational goals and to evaluate its utility. METHODS: In this MMI, candidates rotated through six stations (10 minutes per station), in which specific interview topics were drawn by mapping the school's educational goals with the core competencies for entering medical students. We conducted post-MMI surveys of all of the interviewers and candidates to investigate their experiences of MMIs. The G-coefficient and interclass correlation were analyzed to investigate the reliability of this test. Additionally, the candidates' MMI scores were compared across different backgrounds and a univariate analysis was used to estimate correlations between their MMI scores and prior academic achievements. RESULTS: A total of 164 candidates (a 98.8% response rate) and 19 interviewers (a 100% response rate) completed the surveys in the years 2014 and 2015. Both candidates and assessors showed positive responses to MMIs. The G-coefficient of MMI scores was 0.88 and the interclass correlation coefficients ranged from 0.58 to 0.75. The participants' total MMI scores did not differ across genders or undergraduate backgrounds and were not associated with age, undergraduate graduate point averages, nor the Korean medical school admission test (Medical Education Eligibility Test) scores. CONCLUSION: Our study illustrates the utility of MMIs that utilize the institution's educational goals to identify attributes to be pursued in the admission interviews in alignment with the institution's core values. Future research is warranted of the predictive validity of this MMI.
Education ; Education, Medical ; Humans ; Interviews as Topic ; School Admission Criteria ; Schools, Medical* ; Students, Medical

BACKGROUND: This study was conducted to examine the academic achievements of first year medical students in one medical school based on their characteristics and student selection factors of admission. METHODS: The admission scores of student selection factors (Medical Education Eligibility Test [MEET], grade point average [GPA], English test score and interview) and demographic information were obtained from 61 students who had interviewed (multiple mini interview [MMI]) for admission (38 graduate medical school students in 2014, 23 medical college-transfer students in 2015). T-tests and ANOVA were used to examine the differences in academic achievement according to the student characteristics. Correlations between admission criteria scores and academic achievements were examined. RESULTS: MEET score was higher among graduate medical students than medical college transfer students among student selection factors for admission. There were no significant differences in academic achievement of first grade medical school between age, gender, region of high school, years after graduation and school system. The lowest interview score group showed significantly lower achievement in problem-based learning (PBL) (p=0.034). Undergraduate GPA score was positively correlated with first grade total score (r=0.446, p=0.001) among admission scores of student selection factors. CONCLUSION: Students with higher GPA scores tend to do better academically in their first year of medical school. In case of interview, academic achievement did not lead to differences except for PBL.
Education ; Humans ; Problem-Based Learning ; School Admission Criteria* ; Schools, Medical* ; Students, Medical