Promoting Health in Japan under the American Occupation ［1945-1952］ - the Design of the 8-Year Medical Education Program
10.11307/mededjapan.44.421
- VernacularTitle:8年制医師養成教育―GHQサムス准将の提案
- Author:
Sey Nishimura
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- Keywords:
8-year medical education program;
Crawford F. Sams;
graduate medical school model;
transfer admission of students with a bachelor’s degree;
Yoshishige Abe
- From:Medical Education
2013;44(6):421-428
- CountryJapan
- Language:Japanese
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Abstract:
In 1945, the Committee for Investigation of Japanese Medical Science, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers ［SCAP］, proposed that future Japanese medical students receive a four-year liberal-arts pre-medical education, followed by four years of medical-technical training. The proposal was promoted by Colonel （later Brigadier-General） Crawford F. Sams, Chief, Public Health & Welfare Section, SCAP, and the Medical Education Council in the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Japanese Government.
However, Professor Yoshishige Abe, Chairman of the Education Reform Committee of the Ministry of Education, and a former Minister of Education, refused to accept the proposal in light of impoverished post-war Japanese resources.
The proposal was abandoned when the Civil Information & Education Section, and the Chief of Staff, SCAP, were both unwilling to issue directives to the Japanese Government to implement the proposal. The six-year medical education program, comprised of two years of liberal-arts pre-medical study and four years of medical-technical training within the individual medical schools, thus became the norm in post-war Japan.
Since 2009, Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, M.D., Honorary Director of the St. Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo, has been advocating for a “Graduate Medical School” attached to the St. Luke’s International Hospital. This graduate medical school model would accept students on completion of at least a bachelor’s degree. If actualized, it would be a noteworthy trial of an eight-year medical education program, almost seventy years after it was first proposed in Japan.
