Since the beginning of the training program in Rehabilitation Medicine for both undergraduate medical students and residents in Korea in 1792 with the foundation of the Korean Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine, 14 medical school among 31 in the country have started the undergraduate training in Rehabilitation Medicine with various curricula.

In order to evaluate present status of this education and to obtain baseline data for the guideline for approval of the curricula to improve the quality, of education, comprehensive data on undergraduate curricula were obtained from the school with the undergraduate program Rehabilitation Medicine and analyzed.

Fourteen medical schools had undergraduate curricula in Rehabilitation Medicine with lectures and 5 school had clinical clerkship, 3 of them being compulsory and 2 being elective.

Average duration of the lecture was 17 hours with 1 credit.

Among 2.650 prospective number of authorized graduates in the school year of 19991. 62% will have experiences of lectures in Rehabilitation Medicine and 25% of clerkship. Most of the lectures were allocated in their junior year and the clerkship in senior.

Curriculum contents from 9 schools consisted of physical medicine, electrodiagnosis, functional evaluation, spinal cord injury, amputation & prosthetics, pediatric rehabilitation, stroke & brain damage etc. in the order of frequency.

General instructional objectives and special behavioral objectives were set in only 2 schools and checklist to evaluate the students during clerkship was used only in 1 school.

Full time staff physiatrists in those schools were 38 in number. Six schools had only one staff each.

They were 12 professors, 7 associate professors, 1 assistant professor and 18 instructors.

Thirty seven percent of the Korean Board Certified physiatrists were involved in teaching medical students.

In conclusion, every effort is to be called,

1) to include, Rehabilitation Medicine in undergraduate medical education.

2) to increase apportunities of clinical clerkship in Rehabilitation Medicien

3) to include Rehabilitation Medicine in Medical Licensing Examination.

4) to improve the quality of the education in Rehabilitation Medicine, and

5) to support the junior teaching faculties to improve their teaching skills