Current status of medical education research in Japan: A meta-epidemiological investigation

Background: The representation of Japan in science has been decreasing. No data is available on the current status of medical education research in Japan. Aim: The present study aims to describe the current status of medical education research in Japan. Methods: We conducted a meta-epidemiological investigation of the conference abstracts from Japan for the Japan Society for Medical Education (JSME), the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) Conference, and Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference (APMEC) published between April 2012 and March 2017. Results: A total of 1399 JSME conference abstracts and 193 AMEE conference and APMEC conference abstracts were published. From a total of 382 abstracts, 37 abstracts (10%) presented at the JSME 2014 conference were published as full papers. From a total of 39 abstracts, four (10%) abstracts presented at the AMEE Conference 2014 and APMEC 2014 from Japan were published, respectively. Exploratory analysis showed that the characteristics of abstracts were not related significantly with subsequent publication. Of the original articles, 0.46% (31/6727) from Japan were presented in seven international medical education journals. Conclusion: We found a low subsequent publication rate for Japanese conference abstracts and low representativeness in medical education journals. Further investigation to improve the number of publications is required.