Medical education in the Republic of China.

Abstract

In 1895, the Taiwan Hospital was established in Taipei and provided training for local people. This developed into the Taiwan Government Medical School. In 1936, the Faculty of Medicine was established in the Taihoku Imperial University for training high school graduates and became National Taiwan University College of Medicine in 1945. This was the first medical college in Taiwan. There are currently eight medical colleges in Taiwan. The number of medical and health care personnel has increased tremendously in recent years. Most of the information in this paper was collected from the reports or publications of these eight medical colleges and the Ministry of Education. Some current publications of medical education in Taiwan have been used. The information includes undergraduate medical education, graduate medical education and continuing medical education. Today, medical education is changing and progressing, however there are still some problems that need to be solved. Certainly we believe medical education is close related to health care in this country. Health care should be related to the needs of the population. The developments and changes in medical education are closely linked with trends in health care programs and with advances in the medical sciences. As the scientific foundation of clinical practice has expanded, the caring aspect of medicine has been given less emphasis. In the past, medical education has focused too much on teaching the medical sciences, and tended to neglect education about medical care and people’s health. Medical care education and medical science education should be united as much as possible, thus forming “holistic” medical education. Medical education must be a continuing process. This concept needs to be emphasized in our medical school.