Objective To provide scientific evidence for the establishment of medical specialist system in China by analyzing the current situation and problems, putting forward solution thoughts and countermeasures, from the angle of medical education system, residency training program and licensed physician management. Method Principle and method of evidence-based medicine were adopted. Retrospective investigation was conducted to gain information from 1996 to 2002 about enrollment and running form of medical education, current situation of residency and specialist training. Data was then extracted and analyzed for the benefit of corresponding countermeasures. Results By the end of 2001, there were totally 1 640 thousand physicians in China. The enrollment proportion of undergraduate and junior college student steadily increased from 1996 to 2002, while the situation quite the reverse as for medical secondary school. More than 300 thousand have taken part in the licensure exam, among whom less than 15% had university diploma. About 52 000 doctors have already completed the residency training program, and 65 700 are being trained. Standardized system of specialist training and admittance is not available in China. Conclusions It was three main tough problems that mainly account for the poor quality of doctor as a whole in China, which include diversity of educational system, insufficient software and hardware of residency training program, and absence of specialist training system. An allied funded program of "research on medical specialist training and admittance" has been on the way, and research outcomes will be published soon.
Objective To provide scientific evidence for the establishment of medical specialist system in China by investigating the history, current situation, problems and countermeasures of medical specialties training at home and aboard. Method The principle and theroy of evidence-based medicine were adopted. The information before Dec. 31, 2003 of Pubmed, CBM, official website, some journals, most frequently used search engines and medical monograph were systematically reviewed. Included literatures were assessed and graded according to the pre-defined criterias. Results A total of 1 319 studies (1 298 in English, 21 in Chinese) were included, among which only 6 were related to the classification of medical specialties. Based on the information from official website of USA, Canada, UK, Singapore, Australia and China (including HK and Taiwan), it showed that China has the largest number of medical specialties, followed by that of USA. In China, the number of medical specialties has more than that of the disciplines in clinical field, which was followed by resident training programs. Some specialties were duplicate, or not international standardized. Conclusions The classification of medical specialties should be developed consecutively, which comprehensively considered the international trend, characteristics of doctor training and the current situation. Specialties whose training program are well-established and developed should initiate firstly. Others will be put into practice gradually after being fully exprienced.
Evidence-informed decision making is one of the most common, objective and important health policy research methods used by policy makers. Its purpose is to promote the application and dissemination of research knowledge on health policy and systems to change traditional and subjective models of health policy making in order to improve national and regional health systems. Three elements will influence the effectiveness of health policy making:research evidence, available health resources and the value of policy formulation. This paper introduces some pragmatic evidence-based approaches, especially systematic reviews, priority setting and a combined approach matrix (CAM). Systematic reviews have a b impact on the decision process for policy makers. We hope that the application and development of evidence-informed methods will increase in China’s health policy research.
In order to mediate the contradiction between the high quantity and low quality of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinical research, to avoid blind research and waste of resources, and to promote the benign development of TCM clinical research, we proposed carrying out health research priority setting on the TCM clinical research. This paper defined the main content of TCM clinical research and briefly introduced the research status of priority setting methods. We described a five-step process of the TCM priority setting research: setting the research scope and plan, establishing the working group, mapping the research field, identifying priority research areas, reporting, evaluating and updating the research. It is expected that this area will receive the attention of relevant researchers, policy makers and research funders.
Evidence-based medicine advocates to support clinical decision-making with the best evidence, which is useful to objectively evaluate the clinical efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine and optimize clinical diagnosis and treatment. However, significant individualized characteristics identified from syndrome differentiation and treatment are incompatible with evidence-based clinical decision-making, which highlights population-level evidence, to some extent. In recent years, a number of new methods and technologies have been introduced into individualized clinical efficacy evaluation research of traditional Chinese medicine to assist managing and processing complex and multivariate information. These methods and technologies share similarities with evidence-based medicine, and are expected to link the clinical practice of traditional Chinese medicine with evidence-based clinical decision-making. They will guide the development of evidence-based clinical decision-making in traditional Chinese medicine.
Objective To investigate the situation of supplemental drugs to the national essential medicines list (EML) in primary health care facilities. Methods Supplemental essential medicine lists published by provincial governments around our country were identified. Characteristics of categories, names and quantities of the supplemental drugs were extracted and compared. Results Supplemental lists issued by 13 provinces were included. The number of the supplemental drugs of four provinces including Jiangsu, Guangdong, Inner Mongolia and Shandong surpassed 200. All the included lists contained chemicals and traditional Chinese medicine, as well as nine categories mentioned in the EML. The frequency of 17 drugs in the supplemental lists was over 10. Specific paediatrics drugs and antitumor drugs were considered by several provinces. Conclusion At present, EML cannot meet the requirements of the primary healthcare. Selection and amendment of EML may refer to the supplemental lists which reflect the demands of essential drugs in every area in our country.