Abstract: Objective To analyze the change of enrollment scale of clinical medicine after the merger of medical colleges into universities and provide reference for policy development. Methods The sixty-eight colleges included in the study were divided into 27 merged medical colleges and 41 independent medical colleges based on whether they had undergone the merger. Using the method of descriptive statistics, the annual average enrollment size and the enrollment growth rate of different types of medical colleges from 1998 to 2010 and from 2015 to 2019 are calculated respectively, and the annual average growth rate of enrollment size is discussed by geographic region and college level. Results From 1998 to 2010, the enrollment scale of undergraduate medical education in independent medical colleges showed a continuous increase with the annual growth rate of 9.3%. From 2015 to 2019, the enrollment extension slowed down with an average annual growth rate of 3.3%. However, the enrollment scale of undergraduate medical education in the merged medical colleges has remained relatively stable over the years with annual growth rate around 1.0%. In recent years, the average enrollment size by independent medical colleges has reached twice of that by merged medical colleges. Conclusions The growth rate and enrollment number of the merged medical colleges are much lower than that of the independent medical colleges. Based on the comprehensive consideration of the factors on geographic region and college level, it is necessary to encourage merged medical colleges to expand the enrollment based on education resources. What's more, independent medical colleges should receive more resources while controlling the size of single-site enrollment to alleviate the uneven development between colleges and regions.

Key words: Clinical medicine, Scale of enrolment, Merged medical college, Independent medical college, Undergraduate education