한국 의과대학에서의 가정의학 교육에 대한 실태조사

Abstract

Background : Family medicine was introduced into Korea in 1979 according to social needs of primary care physician of goods quality due to specialization and dehumanization of modern medicine, and became the 23rd specialty in Korea. More than 2,500 family physicians are contributing in the field of primary care, but it is still in shortage of covering the whole primary care fields in Korea. This study was designed to collect the data as basics for development of undergraduate education of family medicine in Korea.

Methods : We sent the author-made questionnaires to the professors in 32 medical colleges in Korea, excluding 5 medical colleges only with pre-medical course asking of number of faculty members, student lecture on family medicine, clerkship rotation in family medicine, evaluation method of stude-nts, current status and barrier of undergraduate education in family medicine, and also future expecta-tions of undergraduate education of family medicine in Korea.

Results : Of 32 medical colleges, 20(62.5%) had family medicine departments in the university hospitals and family medicine was mostly 1 or 2. Of 19 medical colleges having family medicine undergraduate education, 7(36.8%) provided family medicine lecture as an independent course, and the history of student lecture was rather short, mostly 1 to 3 years. Most of medical schools gave lectures to the students on sophomore of junior grade and the credit of family medicine course was 1 or less. The clerkship rotations in family medicine were provided in 11(57.9%) of 19 medical colleges. The evaluation methods of undergraduate education in family medicine mostly depended on the written examination(84.2%). To he questions asking the current status of undergraduate education in family medicine, 10 out of 19 answered negatively and 9 answered positively. The barriers of undergraduate education in family medicine would be lack of insight of administrators in the university, lack of cooperation by other departments, lack of a model for undergraduate educa-tion, and lack of effort by the family medicine department in rank order. Most of faculties, 14 out of 19, answered positively for the future of undergraduate education in family medicine.

Conclusion : Since family medicine has been introduced and settled in Korea for 17 years, facilities and current status are not enough to cover primary care in Korea. But the faculties evaluated the current status and future expectation positively. With the efforts to overcome the barriers of undergra-duate education of family medicine in Korea, undergraduate education program of family medicine will improve and family medicine will contribute to improve the health status of Korean people.