Comparison of clinical medicine proficiency tests of China and Japan and the enlightenment / 中华医学教育探索杂志

ABSTRACT

The Clinical Medicine Proficiency Test developed by the National Medical Examination Center of China in 2020 aims to assess whether clinical medical students possess the necessary medical humanities and basic medical theoretical knowledge and skills required for clinical internships. Since 2002, Japan has implemented the pre-clinical clerkship objective structured clinical examination and computer-based testing, which share similarities with China's proficiency test in terms of examination objectives, content, format, and score evaluation. Through comparing the examinations of China and Japan, this article concludes that it is necessary to learn from Japan's experience to expedite the process of promoting the Clinical Medicine Proficiency Test as an industry admission examination in China. We suggest that medical schools should keep tracking the development of the proficiency test and fully leverage its role in urging students to pay more attention to clinical internships. We also urge medical schools to establish a three-level examination system based on post competency criteria in line with the standards of the National Medical Licensing Examination to improve the quality of medical education.