Introduction of Medical School

At Nippon Medical School, freshmen classes begin with liberal arts and basic science courses at Musadhisakai campus. The first year education aims to nurture students’ personality, maturity, and ethics, which are the key elements required for medical professionals. At the same time, students need to acquire basic science skills as well as flexibility in thinking process, both of which are necessary in the field of medical practice. Students take classes such as biology, statistics, sociology, and foreign languages. They also take classes that relate directly to medicine, classes such as introduction to medicine, and etc. Classes are conducted in small classrooms so that lectures and discussions can take place in a calm learning environment.

Basic medicine courses begin in second year when students move to Sendagi campus, and continue until third year. The courses include specialty areas such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, immunology, pharmacology, public health, and pathology. Through these classes, students learn the skills of scientific analysis as well as the latest knowledge of basic medicine, both of which are necessary for the future medical judgments. At this stage, students are required to participate in many experimental work assignments, and write reports and present the results of their work. Third-year students are also assigned to basic medicine departments for several months to conduct experimental projects under the supervision of scholars.

At the end of the third-year, the clinical medicine courses begin. Students first learn the general theory of medicine, followed by lectures of each specialty such as circulatory medicine, respiratory medicine, gastroenterological medicine, and many more. However, recent reform in Nippon Medical School education system has focused more on merging specialties, and started to teach by blending basic and clinical medicine, as well as melding internal medicine and surgery as one organ system. In addition, the new curriculum puts more effort on educating students in a real clinical setting rather than old style lectures. So students are more involved in the small group learning (SGL) system. Students move on to bed side learning in their fifth and sixth year, and learn from patients at the university hospital. They learn to solve the real problems that patients face and prepare to become professionals.