Medical education system. Reorganization of Chair System and Redistribution of Faculty Members at the Medical School / 医学教育

ABSTRACT

The chair system was introduced into the Japanese universities from Germany more than 100 years ago in the Meiji era. Since then, it made very little change and was preserved like antiquities in the medical schools.<BR>During the past 100 years, there had been two opportunities to change it first in the early 1970s at the time when new medical schools had been established all over Japan and second in 1991 at the time of change of the university chartering standards law which was conducted by the Japanese Ministry of Education toward a liberalization of the past law in order to let the universities match to the change of society and to the progress of art and science.<BR>Although since the latter opportunity some change was observed mainly at graduate schools of the limited high-ranked universities, most of medical schools have neither changed their traditional chair system nor reformed their schools in spite of the ensured liberalization.<BR>In this paper, why reorganization of chair system is necessary, how it can be done and also why and how redistribution of faculty members is crucial and can be performed are explained by citing an example at the University of Tsukuba which has experienced during the past two and half decades from the beginning of its establishment in 1973.