Author: Hiroshi Tazaki
Over the last 10 years, the most prominent developments in clinical medicine were the introduction of gene therapy and minimally invasive surgery. Basic scientific progress was so rapid that practical activities, teaching young fellows, clinical training of residents were left behind. Thus, ethical problems in conducting new research projects and patient care, resulted in many legal and malpractice cases.
In the future, medical and surgical technology will be progressing faster than in the last decade. Medical students and post-graduate residents must learn more, while the number of teachers with knowledge and technique declines. In addition, a complete human being with a wide general sense of the world outside of medicine is needed for medical science and patient care in the future.
Medical students should attend a four-year college and go on to medical school after graduation-standard in medical schools in the United States for over a half-century. Nevertheless the above-mentioned problems exist in both post-graduate research studies and clinical training. If a medical school in Japan introduces this, Japanese medical science will attain world leadership over the next 25 years by combining the best ideas of the United States, while maintaining a Japanese standard of quality and technology.
