The Department of Medical Science is a two-year master's program. This department was established for students with backgrounds other than medicine to come into expanded contact with basic medicine and to develop the ability to conduct basic medical research after admittance. According to this aim, students will attend lectures on basic medicine for half a year and will then be assigned to a basic medicine laboratory to raise individual skills and abilities.
The two-year schedule is roughly as follows:

There are 2 lecture periods in the morning and 2 in the afternoon from 8:40 AM to 4:20 PM, from the beginning of April to the end of June in the 1st year. First year students with various backgrounds will gain basic medical knowledge by attending these lectures. Each laboratory of the Department of Medical Science is responsible for about 4 lecture periods, teaching wide-ranging medical knowledge and outlining what type of research is being done at the forefront of this field.

In the hospital practical training, graduate students in the Medical Science master's program, who have backgrounds other than medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine, will experience the most advanced medical practice and become acquainted with medical personnel, as well as familiarizing themselves the actual conditions of diseases, patients, and diagnosis and treatment and preparing themselves for their future role as medical scientists.
Graduate students will be divided into several groups and will visit a different division daily for two weeks to observe diagnoses and operations and to receive lectures on current problems in medical practice.


Schedule for hospital practical training in the Medical Science master's program in 2014.

Prior to each rotation, a briefing on the rotation will be held. During the rotation, students will stay in laboratories that attracted their interest in the briefing and earlier lectures and will directly experience the actual atmospheres of these laboratories. There is no limitation on the number of laboratories that they can spend time in during the period. However, note that in some laboratories the period of stay during the rotation period is limited.
It completely depends on the graduate students themselves how they use the 3 weeks. Each student will make contact with each professor in the laboratories of interest to conduct a beneficial rotation. They can stay in 3 laboratories for one week each or can stay in one laboratory for the entire 3 weeks to learn a particular research method.

Laboratory assignments will be determined after completion of the laboratory rotation, based on the assignment requests submitted in late July.
After completion of the rotation, students will list their first, second and third choices of laboratories.
As a consequence of these requests,

1. Up to 2 students in the same grade can select the same laboratory.
2. Up to 4 students in the same grade can select the same laboratory in the Institute of Medical

Science and the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences.
If more than the above numbers of students list the same laboratory as their first choice, the students will be interviewed by the head of the department to make an adjustment.
Therefore, some students may not be assigned to their first choice of laboratory. However, even in such cases students are satisfied with their environments and ultimately proceed with their research.
After submission of the requests in July, students will be assigned to laboratories between the beginning of August and September. After this, students will start their research.

The entrance examination for the doctoral program (medical doctor's program) is conducted in early October every year. Graduate students will be exempt from taking a written examination for the doctoral program.

The submission deadline for the master's thesis is in mid-January, and the thesis will be reviewed by 3 referees selected by the steering committee. Thesis presentations will be held in mid-February, and an approximately 30-minute discussion will be held for each applicant. A pass or fail decision is made based on this review and Q&A.

 

	Applicants	Examinee	Passer	Enrollment	Entrance for the doctoral program
April 1999	32	31	14	14	11 (in April 2001)
April 2000	101	96	24	19	15 (in April 2002)
April 2001	86	86	25	18	12 (in April 2003)
April 2002	87	86	29	24	20 (in April 2004)
April 2003	123	114	31	24	-
April 2004	152	137	32	20	-

• 
• 
• 

Copyright (C) Medical Science Graduate Program, The University of Tokyo. All Rights Reserved.