Over the past 20 years, the Center for Medical Education Development Center, Gifu University has been working on training medical educators across the country. The Center offers a wide variety of programs to meet participants’ various needs and levels, targeting medical educators and administrative staff in various fields such as dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. This paper introduces the “Medical Education Starter Kit,” “Fellowship Program,” and “Master’s Course of Health Professions Education” among the programs. The objectives, target participants, and features of each program are outlined, including future prospects.

　This study examined the cases of the difficult encounters with problematic students that academic administrative staffs in the health professions education institutons faces. 185 cases were obtained from the 143 administrative staffs who participated in the training program for academic administrative staffs training from 2013 to 2015. Although there are 136 cases (73.5%) related to the problem students, some cases existed which problems were from the system or faculty members. In order to dealing with difficult encounters appropriately in the health care professional training institutions, the cooperation between teachers and academic administrative staffs is indispensable.

　This paper reports how Gifu University has been developing an extracurricular course for interprofessional education (IPE) in collaboration with multi-institutions for three years. Since the planning and implementation of such an IPE course have not been described exhaustively, we summarize our experience and the outcomes based on the analysis of a questionnaire survey involving the participants, including students and faculty members.

　Modern medical education stresses the importance of staff／faculty development and its evaluation. The Medical Education Development Center of Gifu University has been accredited by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology as a National Collaboration Center and has held Seminar and Workshop on medical education 50 times over 14 years towards achieving the mission of staff／faculty development in Japan. Through the analysis of the characteristics of participants and the topics of the workshops and seminars held by the Medical Education Development Center, the history and future of staff／faculty development were examined. The key points suggested to predict the direction of staff／faculty development in the education of health professionals were: acquisition of comprehensive teaching competence, various learning strategies, the importance of work place and practicality, collaborative learning beyond boundaries, scholarly discussion to integrate international and domestic evidence, continuing professional development, and evaluation based on learning stage.

Background: Development in internet technology enables e-learning at the higher education level. We have developed the Internet PBL-Tutorial System/Rakuichi that allows multi-directional communication among participants with web-based bulletin boards. Although this system has been successful in medical education at the undergraduate level, we sought to encourage “readonly members” to participate more fully in the program. Methods: To this end, we compared the posting frequency among three strategies: (1) students and tutors had an off-site meeting to promote face-to-face communication during the course, (2) several classes were allowed to watch the discussion in other classes in the second half of the course, (3) three classes (5 – 6 students each) in one topic were combined into one class (16 students) in the second half. Results: No meaningful effects were observed for strategies (1) or (2). However, the posting frequency increased 50 % for strategy (3). Conclusion: Facilitation of communication among participants was achieved by increasing the number of student participants. We predicted that an optimal number of students in each class in internet-based PBL would be ~20 people.

Objectives: To clarify differences in medical students’ emotional intelligence and empathy among 4 school years and sex.
Methods: A cross-sectional study of 370 medical students in years 1, 2, 4, and 6 was performed with Japanese versions of 2 self-reported questionnaires: the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire–Short Form （TEIQue-SF） and the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy–Student Version （JSPE-S）.
Results: Total scores of the TEIQue–SF tended to decrease in higher school years. However, the total score of the JSPE-S was significantly increased in year 6 but was decreased in year 4. Male students had higher TEIQue–SF scores, and female students had higher JSPE-S scores. Of the 4 factors of the TEIQue–SF compared （well-being, self-control, emotionality, and sociability）, only sociability was higher in males. No differences were found among school years. The scores of the TEIQue–SF and the JSPE-S showed a weak correlation. Of the factors of the TEIQue–SF, only self-control showed no correlation with the JSPE-S.
Discussion and Conclusion: These results suggest that the emotional intelligence of both male and female medical students tends to decline. The increase in JSPE-S scores in year 6 suggests that medical interview training is effective. Furthermore, training is important both to enhance emotional intelligence and to teach self-control skills.

  Committee for Information Infrastructure in the 16th term of JSME Board Members was newly created to edit Medical Education White Book issued every four years and to provide sooner and more comprehensive information infrastructure provision. MEAL was opened as a website for medical education information since August 2011. MEAL consists of glossary, articles, books and more resources using a system like Wiki or Blog on the Web. By such technological progress, not only one–way information provision from JSME but also bidirectional communication between JSME members and committees／board members became available. Internationally, similar websites are known, such as MedEdPORTAL by AAMC （Association of American Medical Colleges）, and expected to be new scholarly information added to journals.

  Emotional intelligence and empathy are crucial in patient–physician relationships and clinical outcomes. It has been reported that both emotional intelligence and empathy decrease as students advance through medical school. This study aimed to validate Japanese versions of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire–Short Form （TEIQue–SF）, developed by Petrides and Furnham （2001）, and the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy （JSPE）, developed by Hojat et al. （2001）.
1）The TEIQue–SF and JSPE were translated and administered to 370 medical students. Valid responses were obtained from 321 students（88%）.
2）Cronbach’s alpha for internal reliability was high for both the TEIQue–SF （0.87） and the JSPE （0.89）. All item total score correlations were positive for both the TEIQue–SF （range, 0.29 to 0.64） and the JSPE （range, 0.27 to 0.72）.
3）Cronbach’s alpha was smaller if an item was deleted than if all items were included for both the TEIQue–SF （0.84–0.85） and the JSPE （0.81–0.86）.
4）Factor analysis of both the TEIQue–SF and the JSPE revealed that the Japanese versions had some structural differences from the original versions. However, criterion–related analysis showed that the TEIQue–SF and the JSPE were highly correlated with the NEO–Five Factor Inventory, a measure of the Big Five personality traits.
5）These findings provide support for the construct validity and reliability of the Japanese versions of the TEIQue–SF and the JSPE when used for medical students. Further investigation is needed.

Stretching for the triceps surae muscle in the knee flexed position (medical stretching: MS) and knee extended position (static stretching: SS) were performed and the effect on the dorsiflexion angle of the ankle joint was examined. Five elderly females were selected as subjects. We measured the maximal dorsiflexion angle of the ankle joint in the following leg positions: (1) the maximal dorsiflexion angle in the extended knee position (EDF angle) and (2) the maximal dorsiflexion angle in the 90°flexed-knee position (FDF angle). There was a significant increase in the maximal dorsiflexion angle after MS and SS were carried out (p<0.01), but there was no significant difference between MS and SS. It was concluded that MS for triceps surae is equally effective as SS in increasing the maximal dorsiflexion angle of the ankle joint.