Admission Policy

＜Professional Degree Course＞

The goal of this course is to help people, who wish to start a professional or academic research career in the future in the fields of health, medicine, and welfare, to acquire the knowledge, techniques, and attitude necessary to detect, evaluate, analyze, and solve problems related to the health of human society. The disciplines that are the target of this course range from humanities to natural sciences with graduates in every field. We welcome motivated people with the goal of working as a highly specialized professional or academic researcher in the health, medical, and welfare fields domestically or internationally.

＜Doctoral Course＞

This course aims to research the academic issues necessary to detect, evaluate, analyze, and solve problems related to health and illness of human society. The people who complete the course are expected to engage in advanced education and research in the fields of health, medicine, and welfare, domestically and internationally. The disciplines that are the research subjects range from humanities and social sciences to natural sciences with graduates in every field. We welcome motivated applicants who have similar goals and purpose as mentioned above.

Curriculum Policy

＜Professional Degree Course＞

The professional degree course will carry out systematic education consisting of basic, applied, and practical education with the aim of training a diverse group of people to become professionals in the health, medical, and welfare fields equipped with the required knowledge, technical skills, and attitude to detect, evaluate, analyze, and create solutions for the people in society. Specifically, the education of the core areas of education required for professionals in the public health medical field (epidemiology, medical statistics, environmental science, social science, public administration and management) will be carried out. Additionally, introductory education of basic medicine and clinical medicine will be carried out in order to cultivate a basic knowledge of medicine for people who do not have a background in medicine. In addition to fundamental education, a variety of elective courses are available as applied education ranging from advanced medical courses to humanities and social sciences to train professionals to be equipped with advanced background knowledge by providing applicable, highly interdisciplinary studies. Practical education will cultivate ethics, presentation skills, and planning skills necessary for professionals along with enabling students to understand the knowledge in an integrated manner in which experience in the planning, ethical review, implementation, presentation and research challenges is imposed on everyone.

We opened up the course listed below in order to train experts in highly specialized fields in the field of public health while carrying out systematic education.

♢One year MPH Course

This course is a one-year professional degree course for people who have practical experience in public health. In our country, we systematically theorize the onsite work experience in the public health field and the curriculum that helps to further acquire a high level of expertise has not been fully developed. This is a one-year course for people who want to advance their expertise based on their own practical experience. We welcome people with a wide range of public health work experience who aim to earn a high level of expertise without being bound to a conventional frame.
For example, work experience in the following: Government agencies (health and welfare health care, occupational health agencies or environmental health organizations), health insurance, medical institutions, nursing care facilities for the elderly, the pharmaceutical industry, medical industry, environment-related industries, think tank involved with health care or hospital management, media, and the legal field.
An example of practical experience in the health and welfare medical field would be a doctor, dentist, veterinarian, pharmacist, public health nurse, registered dietitians with working experience of more than two years in government agencies or medical institutions (in principle as a full-time staff working 32 hours or more per week).
You may also apply for the two-year MPH course at the same time, but you cannot apply for a clinical researching training course (MCR).

♢Master of Clinical Researcher Course (MCR) (Clinical Information Epidemiology Field)

The MCR course is a one-year course for doctors and dentists with clinical experience. This course is the first full-fledged curriculum was offered in this country in order to nurture researchers who are active in the clinical research field and the course was established as an official field in 2008.
We welcome applicants who aspire to do clinical research based on the research question that is rooted in their own clinical experience.
You may also apply for the two-year MPH course at the same time, but not for the one-year MPH course.

♢Genetic Counselor Course (Genetic Medical Science Field)

This course will train people who can correspond with genetic medical care and have a high level of technical knowledge and communication skills and who will be able to become the interface for genetic medicine and understand the position that patients and their families are in. We expect applicants who are motivated to challenge the new genetic medical fields. Also, we expect applicants who plan on proceeding onto the doctoral course below.

♢MPH-DrPH Course

This course is for people who:
1) Hold a master’s degree or equivalent
2) Is a doctor or dentist with over two years of clinical experience or completed postgraduate training and wishes to continue on to this doctoral program can continue on to the doctoral program at completion of the first year with good performance on the entrance examination or in their professional degree course after admission.
(This course is intended for those who wish to advance into the doctoral program. If you do not advance the one-year that was completed in the professional course will become invalid)

＜Doctoral Course＞

This doctoral course will train people to be able to conduct advanced academic research in the fields of health, medical care, and welfare with the necessary knowledge, techniques, and attitude in order to detect, evaluate, analyze, and solve problems related to the health of the people in society. For the students who have graduated from the professional degree course at Kyoto University, this course will foster researchers to be internationally accepted and educate them with more advanced knowledge and techniques required for the specialized fields they are aiming to enter based on the knowledge and skills that they have learned in their professional degree course. For those who did not graduate form the professional degree course at Kyoto University, we will introduce the core areas of the professional degree course (epidemiology, medical statistics, environmental science, public administration and management, social science) and furthermore, we will provide introductory education in basic medicine and clinical medicine so that there are no gaps among people.

Future Plans

For Japanese medicine, in the past, the methodological foundation that started with epidemiology and medical statistics was vulnerable and a comprehensive sacrifice and historically has been lagging behind in not only epidemiology but also in clinical medicine. In the future, departments of public health will be required to strategically form an organization or function that is in line with the Japan’s current situation as well as establish positions for professionals who have acquired a degree. Specifically, we should strive to continue to further develop in the following ways.

1. Departments of public health are needed to supply high-quality, safe, and advanced medical care to meet the demands of society along with the promotion of health, the prevention of diseases, and to act as the interface for medicine and society.
2. For diversity in future human resource development, it is important to promote graduates able to lead in the international community as well as in Japan’s medical and health policy decisions, promoting quality education with high level performance and internationalization. To this end, courses such as MD-PHD, MPH-Phd (Dr PH) should be introduced.