Teaching Medical English. A Survey Report on the Present Status of Medical English Education and Plans for Its Improvement / 医学教育

ABSTRACT

The working group to improve foreign language education in medical schools established in 1994 and chaired by K. Uemura, M.D. sent questionaire about their present curricula and future plans for teaching English to the deans of all 49 public and 31 private medical schools from January 9 to March 9, 1995, and collected the responses from 30 (61.2%) public, 24 (77.4%) private, in total 54 (67.5%) medical schools. The teaching of useful English includes English conversation in 37 (68.5%), medical English in 34 (63.0%), and structures of medical papers in 9 (16.7%) schools. Medical English is also taught as extracurricular and other activities in 40 (74.1%) schools. These figures have increased as compared with the ques-tionaire conducted two years previously. English conversation can be taught to junior (1st & 2nd yrs) students, for whom medical English can only be taught on general medical topics such as the medical care delivery system, bioethics, roles of physicians, and primay care. Therefore medical English is more and more taught to middle-class (3rd & 4th yrs) and senior (5th & 6th yrs) students. It seems necessary to annually conduct a workshop for medical English teachers to improve their strategies of teaching.