Initiation of medical specialist training and admittance system in China

Article type
Authors
Li Y, Sun D, He L, Xu J, Tang G, Sun X
Abstract
Background: China has the largest health care services market and population of physicians, promoting the quality of doctors is the key point on improving health care. But compared with huge number of enrollment, the system and standards of medical specialists training are very poor. Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education P.R.China co-funded the program of gresearch on medical specialist training and admittance system h, tens of institutions participated in it. Chinese Cochrane Center ^Chinese Evidence-Based Medicine Center was pointed to provide high-quality evidence for the research .

Objectives: To provide scientific evidence for the establishment of medical specialist training and certification system in China by analyzing the current situation and problems, putting forward solution thoughts and countermeasures, from the angle of medical education system, residency training program and licensed physician management.

Methods: Principle and method of evidence-based medicine were adopted. Retrospective investigation was conducted to gain information from 1996 to 2002 about enrollment and running model of medical education, current situation of residency and specialist training. Data was then extracted and analyzed for the benefit of corresponding countermeasures. Literatures on medical specialist training were collected from Pubmed, official websites, and most used search engine such as Google and Yahoo without time and language limit. Conclusion was drawn from analysis and comparison of data.

Results: By the end of 2001, there were totally 1,640 thousand physicians in China. The enrollment proportion of undergraduate and junior college student steadily increased from 1996 to 2002. Medical educational system is varied from there-year to eight-year education. Until 2002, only about 300 thousand participated in the licensure exam, among which less than 15% had university diploma. About 52,000 doctors have already completed the residency training program, and 65,700 are being trained. Standardized system of medical specialist training and admittance is not available in China now.

Conclusion: Three main tough problems are urgently need to be solved in China, including diversity of educational system, insufficient software and hardware of residency training program, and absence of specialist training system. The quality and efficiency of healthcare in China would not be competent unless the above-mentioned problems were solved successfully. With the progress of this study, research outcomes will be published serially soon.