Students' participation in the processes of clinical medicine programs accreditation

Being the focus of all medical education programs, the medical students should be in the spotlight in the accreditation of these programs.Students should have the right to give feedbacks on the quality of higher medical education and be provided the opportunities to contribute to the accreditation process.In order to evaluate current students' participation in this process and students' attitude toward accreditation, we conducted a survey on 340 students of grade 2004 ～ grade 2009, five-year and seren-year clinical medicine programs and had interriews with seven strdents at Shantou University Medical College.The survey results indicated that students' participation in the accreditation process was limited.36.5 percent students were not aware that their medical school was going through the accreditation process and 60.3percent students did not know about the site visit of the accreditation team.Whilethe students had a strong will to participate in the accreditation.So efforts should be made to involve the students in the accreditation process.We proposed a variety of ways to encourage students' participation in the accreditation process,such as ensuring the rights of the students in the accreditation of their medical schools, stimulating the enthusiasm of students' involvement and providing concrete opportunities for students' participation may be the effective approaches. Key words: Medical students;  Accreditation of clinical medicine program;  Survey;  Thinking