Development of a medical academic degree system in China

dc.creator	Lijuan Wu
dc.creator	Youxin Wang
dc.creator	Xiaoxia Peng
dc.creator	Manshu Song
dc.creator	Xiuhua Guo
dc.creator	Hugh Nelson
dc.creator	Wei Wang
dc.date	2014-01-01T00:00:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2015-07-20T22:21:37Z
dc.date.available	2015-07-20T22:21:37Z
dc.identifier	1087-2981
dc.identifier	10.3402/meo.v19.23141
dc.identifier	https://doaj.org/article/b9a615f431314176a4198d2b25cea360
dc.identifier.uri	http://evidence.thinkportal.org/handle/123456789/20452
dc.description	Context: The Chinese government launched a comprehensive healthcare reform to tackle challenges to health equities. Medical education will become the key for successful healthcare reform. Purpose: We describe the current status of the Chinese medical degree system and its evolution over the last 80 years. Content: Progress has been uneven, historically punctuated most dramatically by the Cultural Revolution. There is a great regional disparity. Doctors with limited tertiary education may be licensed to practice, whereas medical graduates with advanced doctorates may have limited clinical skills. There are undefined relationships between competing tertiary training streams, the academic professional degree, and the clinical residency training programme (RTP). The perceived quality of training in both streams varies widely across China. As the degrees of master or doctor of academic medicine is seen as instrumental in career advancement, including employability in urban hospitals, attainment of this degree is sought after, yet is often unrelated to a role in health care, or is seen as superior to clinical experience. Meanwhile, the practical experience gained in some prestigious academic institutions is deprecated by the RTP and must be repeated before accreditation for clinical practice. This complexity is confusing both for students seeking the most appropriate training, and also for clinics, hospitals and universities seeking to recruit the most appropriate applicants. Conclusion: The future education reforms might include: 1) a domestic system of ‘credits’ that gives weight to quality clinical experience vs. academic publications in career advancement, enhanced harmonisation between the competing streams of the professional degree and the RTP, and promotion of mobility of staff between areas of excellence and areas of need; 2) International – a mutual professional and academic recognition between China and other countries by reference to the Bologna Accord, setting up a system of easily comparable and well-understood medical degrees.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	Co-Action Publishing
dc.relation	http://med-ed-online.net/index.php/meo/article/download/23141/pdf_1
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/1087-2981
dc.rights	CC BY
dc.source	Medical Education Online, Vol 19, Iss 0, Pp 1-7 (2014)
dc.subject	medical degree
dc.subject	medical education
dc.subject	medical licensing
dc.subject	Bologna Accords
dc.subject	China
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Medicine (General)
dc.subject	R5-920
dc.subject	Medicine
dc.subject	R
dc.subject	DOAJ:Medicine (General)
dc.subject	DOAJ:Health Sciences
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Medicine (General)
dc.subject	R5-920
dc.subject	Medicine
dc.subject	R
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Medicine (General)
dc.subject	R5-920
dc.subject	Medicine
dc.subject	R
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Medicine (General)
dc.subject	R5-920
dc.subject	Medicine
dc.subject	R
dc.title	Development of a medical academic degree system in China
dc.type	article