A group of Chinese medical students trapped in standardized training: endless medical records to write, endless chores to do, with extremely meager income

The plight and predicament of medical students in China

A group of medical students entering “standardized training” has recently become a hot topic in the Chinese medical community.

The full name of standardized training is standardized training for resident physicians. According to the “Guiding Opinions on Establishing the System of Standardized Training for Resident Physicians,” all medical graduates in China, after completing a 5-year undergraduate medical education, need to undergo standardized training at a training base for 3 years, with the status of resident physicians.

In the mouths of most medical students, this is the only way to become a professional physician.

The impact of standardized training goes beyond this, especially for medical students who are enrolled in specialized master’s programs (referring to master’s degree students in clinical medicine), who, on one hand, rotate through hospital training under hospital management, and on the other hand, are essentially still master’s students, managed by the school.

Their goal is clear: to obtain the standardized training certificate, the physician qualification certificate, and to earn a degree and a diploma through exams, shedding their student status with “four certificates” — any…