PhD Program
This program is mainly for graduates of medical schools, but is also open to graduates of non-medical universities.
Students select a course for either researchers or clinical practitioner researchers. The former course aims to train students to become researches who will support medicine in future and contribute to the development of medicine.
The latter course is aimed towards students who have finished their clinical training and now work as doctors-in-training.
This course is designed to train students to become clinical practitioners who have a high level of both clinical and research abilities.

Outline of PhD Program
As the basic essential education, students in the Course for Researchers must attend “Medical Sciences” lectures, and they are recommended to take the “Medical Science Lab Course”. For students in the Course for Clinical Practitioner Researchers, their mandatory lectures are “Integrated Medical Humanities, Sciences and Technology” lectures, basically combined with the “Lab Course for Integrated Medical Humanities, Sciences and Technology”.
Those lectures and lab courses are called Common Basics and they provide students with the basic skills and knowledge of medical research in order to prepare themselves for starting the PhD study.

Students select lectures and lab courses from among specialized subjects as a major. In addition, besides the major chosen, they are asked to study subjects that are related to their specialty. This helps students enrich and expand their research. Concurrently it can give them a broader perspective that enhances their ability of solving problems.
Further, it is mandatory for students to attend a series of “Graduate School Seminars” presented by out-of-campus scientists. It is a good opportunity to learn the front line of medicine. The final task of the PhD program is to write a thesis. “Thesis Study” is set as a subject to help students prepare for their theses through extensive discussions with
a graduate adviser.

Course for Researchers
Classification		Subject	Credit
Common Basics	Mandatory	Medical Sciences	１
	Selective mandatory	Medical Science Lab Course	１〜０
		Integrated Medical Humanities, Sciences and Technology	０〜１
		Lab Course for Integrated Medical Humanities, Sciences and Technology	０〜１
Specialties	Selective mandatory	Specialized Subjects Lectures (major)	４
		Specialized Subjects Lab Course （major）	８
Advanced Study	Elective	Specialized Subjects Lab Course (other than major)	１０〜８
	Mandatory	Graduate School Seminars	２
Thesis	Mandatory	Thesis Study	４

 

Course for Medical Practitioner Researchers
Educational Process		Subject	Credit
Common Basics	Mandatory	Integrated Medical Humanities, Sciences and Technology	１
	Selective mandatory	Lab Course for Integrated Medical Humanities, Sciences and Technology	１〜０
		Medical Sciences	０〜１
		Selective mandatory Lab Course	０〜１
Specialties	Selective mandatory	Specialized Subjects Lectures (major)	４
		Specialized Subjects Lab Course （major）	８
Advanced Study	Elective	Specialized Subjects Lab Course (other than major)	１０〜８
	Mandatory	Graduate School Seminars	２
Thesis	Mandatory	Thesis Study	４

Mandatory Subjects in PhD Program
Each course has mandatory subjects to study.
In the Course for Researchers, students have to study Medical Sciences.
This subject includes lectures on research ethics, methodologies of designing experiments, solving problems, and presenting research as well as how to take laboratory notebooks. In addition, statistics that is required in data analysis, and characteristics of English words that are typically used in basic medicine are also taught.

In Medical Science Lab Course, students practice various basic experiments mainly through bench work on molecular medicine in basic medicine. By adding fieldwork of epidemiology, which is essential in social medicine, to the experiments, students are able to acquire basic procedures of research operation.
At the same time, they are expected to enrich and expand their specialty.

It is mandatory for students in the Course for Medical Practitioner Researchers to study Integrated Medical Humanities, Sciences and Technology organized by Kasai Ryuki, Professor of the Department of Community and Family Medicine. Since students in this course are in their clinical training and their researches are in the same line, this subject gives students lectures on academic basics of clinical researches. They learn how to medically comprehend human, or how to perceive present-day medicine from the various angles, as well as basic procedures of clinical researches, information-processing techniques, and foreign and domestic medical systems.

In the Lab Course for Medical Humanities, Sciences and Technology, Prof. Kasai teaches his practice method, cinemeducation, to deepen the understanding of lectures. He also teaches what are necessary to internationalized clinical-medicine researchers.

In the PhD Program, students are allowed to study a subject, which is designated as mandatory for the other course, as selective mandatory when that is considered to be necessary for their theses. For example, a student whose specialty is social medicine in the Course for Researchers can study medical system through Integrated Medical Humanities, Sciences and Technology and its lab course. In the same way, a student in the Course for Medical Practitioner Researchers can acquire molecular medicine techniques by studying Medical Science Lab Course.

As a common subject, our PhD Program has “Graduate School Seminars” and offers special lectures and seminars on the latest medicine. Students can improve their awareness of research trends in the fields other than their specialty and deepen their interest and understanding of medicine on the whole.

The most important requirement for the PhD degree is the writing of a PhD dissertation. In order to write a successful dissertation, students learn basics through lectures and practices of their specialties in Specialized Subjects Lectures and Specialized Subjects Lab Course. They are required to write theses in Thesis Study of the PhD Program. These mandatory subjects help students in the PhD Program clarify their study goals and at the same time those ensure competence standard of students.

Selective Subjects in PhD Program
Students can select from Specialized Subjects Lectures and Specialized Subjects Lab Course according to their necessity. This makes it possible to expand knowledge of one's specialty. For example, a student, whose specialty is elderly medical care in the social medicine, can learn about restoring motor function through lectures on infection control.