Medical students must have motivation to participate in medical care during clinical clerkships. How much interest students have in each department might be a factor in making them more active in clerkships. To make clerkships more effective, we performed a questionnaire survey to investigate the relationship between students' interest in each department and their eagerness in clinical clerkships and to investigate factors to increase their eagerness.
1) Questionnaires were distributed to 92 sixth-year medical students at the University of Tsukuba. The questionnaire consisted of 6-point Likert scales of 4 specific student attitudes in clerkships. We asked the same questions about clerkships at medical departments that each student found more or less interesting.
2) We asked the students to report anecdotes about when they were motivated to learn more in the clerkships. We grouped similar answers into categories.
3) The response rate was 94%. The students were more eager in departments they found more interesting than in departments they found less interesting.
4) Thirty-eight students reported a total of 56 anecdotes. Among the categories, questions or words of encouragement from patients were mentioned in 29 anecdotes, and devoted faculty members were mentioned in 9 anecdotes.
5) These results suggest that medical students' eagerness in clinical clerkships could be increased by deepening their interest in medical departments and by improving communication with patients and physicians.

This study used a self-administered questionnaire to assess the likelihood of chiikiwaku medical student loan repayment and its associated factors. If chiikiwaku repayment is high, then it can have a negative effect on the chiikiwaku program, which was established to distribute doctors to outlying areas. A total of 112 students (37.8%) reported that the likelihood of repayment was "high" or "somewhat high." The factors statistically associated with repayment likelihood were female gender (odds ratio (OR) 3.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.5-6.8), applying forchiikiwaku mainly due to the higher medical school acceptance rate (OR 2.9, 95%CI 1.2-6.8), private medical school (OR 10.3, 95%CI 2.6-40.3), and stress related to obligation or repayment (OR 2.4, 95%CI 1.3-4.3). The results suggest that to decrease the rate of loan repayment it is important to improve the process of selecting chiikiwaku students and to modify the chiikiwaku system to support students experiencing stress.

This study used a self-administered questionnaire to assess the likelihood of chiikiwaku medical student loan repayment and its associated factors. If chiikiwaku repayment is high, then it can have a negative effect on the chiikiwaku program, which was established to distribute doctors to outlying areas. A total of 112 students (37.8%) reported that the likelihood of repayment was "high" or "somewhat high." The factors statistically associated with repayment likelihood were female gender (odds ratio (OR) 3.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.5-6.8), applying forchiikiwaku mainly due to the higher medical school acceptance rate (OR 2.9, 95%CI 1.2-6.8), private medical school (OR 10.3, 95%CI 2.6-40.3), and stress related to obligation or repayment (OR 2.4, 95%CI 1.3-4.3). The results suggest that to decrease the rate of loan repayment it is important to improve the process of selecting chiikiwaku students and to modify the chiikiwaku system to support students experiencing stress.

Introduction: Recently, community-based medical education has become widespread in Japanese medical schools, but the current status is not clear on a national level. A second survey of community-based medical education at all Japanese medical schools was conducted. The first survey was done in 2011. Methods: Members of the Council made and distributed a questionnaire to medical schools in order to assess the situation of community-based medical education as of April 2014. Results: A total of eighty schools responded. The number of schools which had community medicine programs was seventy-eight. In the first survey, the number was seventy-three. Seventy-seven schools gave community-based clinical clerkships. Discussion: The number of medical schools that had curriculum about community medicine was more than indicated in the first survey. Further research about the contents or implementation system of community-based clerkships is needed.

The University of Tokyo Disability Services Office and the University of Tokyo Hospital have striven to advance the inclusion of individuals with disabilities and to encourage the co-production of research as well as mental health services with peer support workers. In convergence with these endeavors, the Center for Diversity in Medical Education and Research (CDMER) was founded in 2021. The Center aims to establish an environment and culture that facilitates the participation and success of medical professionals with disabilities. For this purpose, it is essential to integrate the perspective of the social model of disability into medical education and promote co-production in the medical field, which is among the most challenging areas that can realize co-production. The Center is involved in various educational and research activities, including managing educational programs for medical students and supporting student-led research.