英語教育
The Department of Medical Education is offering an intensive Medical English (or, English for Medical Purposes-EMP) program for the first-year students of the medical course. The program is designed especially for Japanese medical students. It aims to empower them with the basic English skills and knowledge they will need to function well as health care professionals or medical researchers. It offers them an opportunity to develop their reading, comprehension, summarizing, writing, listening, and speaking abilities through a systematic, holistic approach. Moreover, the program seeks to help them become better doctors in the future by considering social, ethical, and clinical issues during the earliest stage of their medical education. It also includes practice for doing OSCE in English.
Medical English is designed to bridge the educational gap between learning general English and learning EMP. It encourages students not only to "study English" but also to "study in English". It is not merely a language course but a full-fledged medical school course that brings together approaches and topics from a wide range of fields, including the social and biological sciences, and applies them to the study of medicine in the broadest terms.
During the spring term, there is just one course: Medical English I, which meets twice per week. During the autumn term, however, the Medical English course consists of two subcourses which run parallel to one another: Medical English II and Introduction to Medical Anthropology. The former is a continuation of Medical English I. The latter is an introduction (in English) to the dynamic field of Medical Anthropology, organized with the needs and level of young Japanese medical students in mind, and conducted at a pace suitable for them. Its goal is to explore the complex interconnections of health, disease, treatment, and culture in different societies and through time. In addition, it gives students a taste of what it would be like to take a basic university course in an English-speaking country such as the USA, where the lectures and readings are in English. In other words, it is "学内留学".
The Introduction to Medical Anthropology subcourse aims to produce more well-rounded doctors who will be able to provide medical care in a variety of different settings and situations. It centers around the argument that health, disease, and healing can never be separated from culture because these are always cultural when humans are concerned. In other words, culture can be as important as biology when dealing with health and disease, and doctors need to consider both. Introduction to Medical Anthropology is a lecture-style subcourse, and it is somewhat challenging, but it has the potential to help future doctors learn how to view health, disease, and healing in a completely different light.
By the end of the Introduction to Medical Anthropology subcourse, students should:
- better understand the relationship between culture and health
- have a more realistic view of the role of the doctor as a healer
- be better prepared to cope with cultural problems in health care
- have a better cross-cultural understanding of health and medicine
- be better able to care for patients with different cultural backgrounds
- have a clearer understanding of biomedicine as a healing system
- more thoroughly comprehend the history and particulars of biomedicine
...and more.
In addition to the Medical English program for freshmen, we also offer short-term seminars in English for second-year and third-year students of the medical course, as well as several graduate seminars.
Come one, come all!
