The perception of the hidden curriculum on medical education: an exploratory study

Semi-structured interviews with thematic content analysis were implemented. Undergraduate year-5 students from a Japanese medical school at a Japanese teaching hospital were recruited. Interview were planned to last between 30 to 60 minutes each, over an 8-month period in 2007. The interviewees' perceptions concerning the quality of teaching in their bedside learning and related experiences were collected and analysed thematically.Twenty five medical students (18 males and 7 females, mean age 25 years old) consented to participate in the interviews, and seven main themes emerged: "the perception of education as having a low priority," "the prevalence of positive/negative role models," "the persistence of hierarchy and exclusivity," "the existence of gender issues," "an overburdened medical knowledge," "human relationships with colleagues and medical team members," and "first experience from the practical wards and their patients."Both similarities and differences were found when comparing the results to those of previous studies in the UK. Some effects of the hidden curriculum in medical education likely exist in common between the UK and Japan, despite the differences in their demographic backgrounds, cultures and philosophies.In the United Kingdom (UK), significant curriculum reforms occurred, in which the UK General Medical Council emphasized reducing information overload of medical knowledge and diverging from didactic teaching [1]. Nevertheless, little attention was paid to the hidden curriculum [1], the effect of which influences students and faculty most concerned about primary care careers [2]. In his interview published in Parade Magazine in 1994, C. Everett Koop, the former U.S. Surgeon General, cited "...What leads most young doctors away from such practice [primary care] is not money but a medical school culture that devalues the family doctor." [2,3]Most of what is acquired in medical school education contributes not to the manifested offerings called f