Abstract: With the in-depth implementation of the Healthy China strategy and the restructuring of the public health system, medical education has demonstrated robust momentum for development. There is an urgent need for systematic and disciplinary research into the patterns of medical talent development and the intrinsic logic of medical education. Establishing medical education as a discipline in universities is not only theoretically justified and practically necessary but also urgently needed. This paper, grounded in the practical reforms of medical education in China, systematically analyzes the contemporary context and institutional drivers behind the development of medical education as a discipline. It elucidates the characteristics of this applied discipline, including its multi-source knowledge base and recursive features. Furthermore, it explores the core issues of disciplinary institutionalization from several dimensions: the construction of knowledge systems, the establishment of degree programs, the composition of faculty, and the coordination mechanisms among training institutions.

Key words: Education, medical, Knowledge system, Discipline institutionalization