Open AccessAre residents learners or workers? A historical perspective in Japan
Author(s) -
Hirohisa Fujikawa,
Daisuke Son,
Masato Eto
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the asia pacific scholar
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2424-9335
pISSN - 2424-9270
DOI - 10.29060/taps.2021-6-1/pv2339
Subject(s) - accreditation , graduate medical education , demographics , medical education , work (physics) , medicine , duty , perspective (graphical) , political science , family medicine , nursing , sociology , law , mechanical engineering , demography , artificial intelligence , computer science , engineering
Many countries enforce limits on the number of hours that medical residents work. For example, in the United States, regulations about duty hours were instituted by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education as early as in 2003, reinforcing those limits in 2011 and again in 2017 (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, 2017). These reforms triggered discussion in medical education literature about their wide-ranging effects on resident education, resident wellness, and patient care (Bolster & Rourke, 2015).In Japan, restrictions on working hours will be implemented for physicians in April 2024 (Shibuya & Unno, 2019). Because of its rapidly shifting demographics to being a super-aged society with a low birth rate, Japan is now facing issues with residents’ learning and working that other countries will need to confront in the near future as their populations shift as well (as of late 2020). Here we report on the history and current situation of postgraduate medical education in Japan, which are highly relevant to re-evaluating postgraduate training in other countries.