Imperatives of Developing Educational Capabilities for Faculties in Medical Education(Symposium "Survival of the fittest faculties in medical schools : nurture of educational capabilities")

Confronted with remarkable changes in science, technology, and societies, continuous development of educational capabilities is mandatory for the physician educators in medical schools. Present paper described outstanding changes surrounding current Japanese medical education, such as future decrement of matriculants, changes of disease-spectra and medical service systems, transformation of national universities and colleges to the legal persons, etc. In order to deal with these changes, curricular innovations are under way as the cooperative works of all the Japanese medical schools. Proposing common minimally-required contents of preclinical education (Model Core Curriculum), implementation of integrated inter-disciplinary curricula together with problem-based learning, enhancement of clinical education by means of clinical clerkship which will be coupled with a nationwide common examination for those students who will start clinical clerkship. Faculty development will be essential as the bases of these new aspects of medical education. The staffs should be familiar with the adult-learner theories as prerequisite for the learners\u27 life-long self-directed active learning. The knowledge of the levels of competencies in learning will also be needed. There are three levels of learning competencies ; "recall" as the first level, "interpret/judge" as the second level, and "apply/solve-problems" as the third deepest level. Faculties should be aware of what educational capabilities to develop; skills for communication, presentation, facilitation, formative evaluation, abilities of planning, management, and self-development. Physician-educators should serve as good role models as well as deliberate mentors. Enhancement of effective faculty-development programs will be needed