The COVID-19 crisis has exploited weaknesses in modern medical education.
There were many cases of hastily conducted training programs to familiarize medical personnel with the proper way of disinfecting and putting on and taking off protective equipment, such as special masks, gowns and gloves, which can be considered the basics of infection control.
A series of infection clusters in hospitals occurred, adding to the pressure on hospital beds.
Currently, the field of infectious diseases carries little weight in the medical education of people wanting to become doctors, with most lectures offered in classrooms. As interest in infectious diseases has been waning with the number of people dying from them decreasing due to improvements in therapeutic drugs, vaccinations and sanitation, the focus of medical care has shifted to cancer and lifestyle-related diseases.
Now that the importance of dealing with infectious diseases has been reaffirmed, however, in order to create a system in which all medical personnel regardless of their specialties can respond immediately to infectious diseases, it is necessary to make changes from the educational level.
Specifically, the practical curriculum should be enhanced, including more practical training using medical simulators to simulate patients. In January, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry decided to spend about 3.8 billion yen to develop such an infectious disease curriculum at 30 universities.
"It will take time, but it is important to create a system that can educate people about infectious disease medicine in any locality in preparation for the next step," said Tetsuya Matsumoto, a professor of infectious diseases at the International University of Health and Welfare.
The shortage of infectious disease specialists has also been pointed out. Specialists are expected to play a leading role in preventing the spread of infection in hospitals and such facilities by guiding zoning to separate potentially dangerous areas from safe areas, in cooperation with respiratory and intensive care doctors.
However, according to the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases, only one-third of the 408 designated medical institutions that have been the main recipients of coronavirus patients have infectious disease specialists on staff. Although there are about 1,600 specialists nationwide, the number of specialists by prefecture is noticeably uneven, with at least 10 prefectures having fewer than 10.
There is an urgent need to secure personnel with an eye on the long-term future.
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