A programme of accelerated medical education in Taiwan

Background: Graduates of the 7-year undergraduate medical curriculum in Taiwan are often deficient in clinical skills.Aims: To implement and assess a programme of accelerated clinical education.Method: The Department of Primary Care Medicine at the National Taiwan University College of Medicine implemented a programme shortening the undergraduate clinical curriculum from 3 to 2 years and giving students more clinical responsibility. Students were prepared for clinical rotations with a 1-month clinical skills course. Core clinical rotations were redesigned to be more participatory. The programme included 1 year of a postgraduate, rotating residency. Self-selected students with adequate grades, recommendations and performance on an interview participated in the programme. None of them dropped out.Results: Compared with their traditionally instructed cohorts, graduates of the accelerated programme (∼10% of each class) were more likely to pass national boards (100% versus 80–97%) and were rated as more profic...