The perception of the hidden curriculum on medical education: an exploratory study

Table 1 Characteristics of study participants*

	year 5 medical students (n = 25)
Mean age	25
Sex	Male 18
	Female 7
Ethnicity	All Japanese (except one male student†)
Entry to medical school‡	After high school (including gap years) 25
	Obtained degrees besides M.D. 0
Marital status	Single 24
	Married 1
	Has children 1

*No characteristics were outside population norms.
†There was no difference in ethnicity: Except for one overseas male medical student from Nepal, all subjects were Japanese. (This had no significant effect on the results).
‡Like other tertiary education, medical school in Japan begins immediately after graduation from high school, but lasts 6 years [9].
We did not obtain religious information from the study participants in the interest of protecting their privacy. However, it is reasonable to assume that this had no significant effect on the data due to most Japanese being atheist.

ISSN: 1447-056X