To reduce malpractice, the government will encourage medical schools to introduce a surgical training program for practicing doctors and dentists that makes use of donated bodies, health ministry sources said Sunday.
The ministry has requested ¥500 million ($4.5 million) from the state budget for fiscal 2018 to subsidize universities that introduce the training program, which is more than 10 times the amount allotted for the current fiscal year, the sources said.
The use of endoscopic surgery has grown popular in recent years but requires higher surgical skills to perform. Those lacking such skills have contributed to cases of fatal malpractice in Japan.
Training with cadavers is a good way to improve surgical skills, but only 15 universities have applied for state subsidies to introduce the program, the sources said.
Some universities are reluctant to try the program due to the high initial cost of purchasing operating tables and other equipment. Some doctors have traveled overseas on their own to receive such training, professors at medical schools say.
According to a group that encourages people to donate their bodies to science, the number of people registering for donation has been rising steadily. It reached 90,000 in 2016.
While students have been permitted by law to use bodies donated to medical schools for anatomy practice, their use for training practicing doctors was made possible after the Japan Surgical Society and the Japanese Association of Anatomists released guidelines in 2012.