The Department and the Center of Medical Education
This note uses organization theory to examine the relationship between departments of medical education and medical education centers at Korean medical schools. Their coexistence is read as an organizational adaptation that loosely couples two rationalities: knowledge production and curriculum operation. The note considers the isomorphic pressure of accreditation, the center's mediating role within a professional bureaucracy, and how scholarly output and operational contribution are recognised. It argues that productive coexistence depends on an evaluation system that recognises boundary spanning as a professional contribution, with the connections between functions carrying greater weight than formal integration or separation.
Loose coupling
At many Korean medical schools, a department of medical education and a medical education center coexist. The department is an academic unit that studies educational phenomena and produces generalisable knowledge. The center supports curriculum delivery, faculty development, and assessment within the constraints of a particular school’s resources, schedule, and faculty. Because names and actual responsibilities vary across schools, analysis rests on the nature of the two functions.
The two functions differ in their time horizons and in how they justify knowledge claims. Scholarly research takes time: conclusions remain provisional, and claims remain open to falsification during peer review. Curriculum delivery requires timely decisions that fit the academic calendar. The coexistence of a department and a center can be understood as an organizational adaptation that allows two rationalities within a single educational activity—knowledge production and implementation—to retain their own criteria and pace, a relationship described in Weick’s terms as loose coupling. The strength of this coupling depends on how readily channels allow research findings to inform operations and problems in practice to become research questions.
Coercive isomorphism and professional bureaucracy
The institutional environment also shapes how the two bodies develop distinct functions. The ASK2019 accreditation standards require faculty development programmes and a faculty performance evaluation system. In DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) terms, accreditation standards exert pressure for coercive isomorphism, leading each school to establish a formal body capable of implementing the requirements.
The two bodies are accountable to different parties. The department answers to an academic community for the scholarly rigour of its research. The center answers to the university and evaluating bodies for running the curriculum and carrying out institutional tasks. In Mintzberg’s model of professional bureaucracy, the center mediates between faculty members’ professional autonomy and standardised institutional requirements. Its implementation work involves the judgement and interpretation needed to mediate between them.
How scholarly output and operational contribution are recognised
As functions become differentiated, expertise and career paths also diverge. Department researchers’ output is recognised through decontextualised, quantitative indicators, including publications and citation counts. The center’s staff plan curricula, coordinate across units, and manage assessment systems. Operational expertise relies heavily on tacit knowledge tied to the institutional context, making it difficult to express in the publication-centred language of evaluation. A person holding both roles bears the burden of being evaluated against two standards: scholarly achievement and institutional contribution. Medical education’s tradition of publishing accounts of curriculum development and evaluation as scholarly papers can help narrow this gap.
Boundary spanning
According to An (2018), curriculum reform at Yonsei University College of Medicine proceeded through the structured CDP project. During this process, the Educational Planning Committee’s implementation responsibilities were transferred to the Kwanghye Education Committee. The Department of Medical Education took responsibility for developing theoretical proposals and conducting scholarly research, while the Education Support Office provided administrative support. Within an integrated organization, research and operations still share resources. Separate organizations also exchange knowledge when channels for mediation exist.
The concept of boundary spanning developed by Tushman and Scanlan (1981) helps explain this connection. A boundary spanner translates operational problems into researchable questions and converts the department’s theoretical analysis into concrete procedures for curriculum reform. HRD research on organizational learning also helps explain this translation and adjustment.