With the aging population in Taiwan, the demand for healthcare has grown, leading to a substantial increase in clinical services for outpatient, emergency, and inpatient care covered by National Health Insurance. Coupled with an aging physician workforce and the inclusion of resident physicians under the Labor Standards Act in September 2019—which reduced working hours—the shortage of medical personnel in rural areas has become increasingly severe. Addressing the deficit in five major specialties, the Ministry of Health and Welfare restarted the "Promoting Physician Workforce in Key Specialties Project" in 2016. Phase I (2016–2020) trained 500 publicly funded medical students. Taking into account the aging demographic of rural physicians, Phase II (2021–2025) was launched in 2021 to train an additional 750 publicly funded medical students.

When National Sun Yat-sen University was founded in Sizihwan in 1980, the establishment of a college of medicine and a school of medicine was already planned. However, over the past 38 years, as Taiwan's population grew from approximately 18 million to over 23 million, no public university had established a medical school. Given the imbalance of healthcare resources between northern and southern Taiwan, as well as the workforce shortages in rural healthcare, establishing a medical school was not only the university's founding vision, but also an unshakeable social responsibility to align with national public health policies, enhance public health welfare, and respond to state policies and societal needs. Therefore, to effectively resolve the aforementioned imbalance of healthcare resources, NSYSU conducted a comprehensive inventory of national healthcare resources in April 2018. Following approval by the Executive Council and University Council in October of the same year, the planning and application process for the School of Medicine within the College of Medicine was officially launched.

After nearly four years of dedicated preparation, the Ministry of Education approved the establishment of the School of Medicine in February 2022. The program began recruiting publicly funded medical students starting in the 2022 academic year, establishing NSYSU as a comprehensive university with a college of medicine. Levering its outstanding academic research performance as a national comprehensive research university, strong faculty lineup, and the convenient learning and living environment in urban Kaohsiung, NSYSU aims to attract outstanding students nationwide who embody the spirit of Albert Schweitzer to join the ranks of publicly funded medical talent. In the future, these physicians will serve as publicly funded doctors supported by affiliated medical centers, fulfilling the healthcare workforce needs in underserved areas to achieve Taiwan's vision of " Healthcare Without Geographic Disparities."

NSYSU is also actively integrating regional healthcare resources. It has partnered with four major medical centers in Southern Taiwan—Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, and Chi Mei Medical Center—as its primary teaching hospitals for clinical clerkships. Additionally, NSYSU collaborates with six municipal hospitals, public hospitals in Kaohsiung, Pingtung, Penghu, and Eastern Taiwan, as well as Kaohsiung Armed Forces General Hospital to promote community medicine and humanistic care training. Furthermore, NSYSU joins hands with Kaohsiung Medical University and Tzu Chi University in medical education to jointly medical professionals, advance innovative medical research, and strive to elevate the quality of healthcare in Taiwan for the benefit of humanity.

Looking to the future, National Sun Yat-sen University will utilize a newly assembled faculty team, starting with a meticulous selection of medical students. By providing advanced smart educational hardware and software infrastructure, delivering outcome-based and innovative medical curricula, and strengthening "community-based medical education," NSYSU emphasizes preventive medicine and smart healthcare. Complemented by medical humanities and volunteer services grounded in holistic care, the university actively cultivates interdisciplinary medical students who care for society and embody the university motto—"Extensive Learning, Accurate Inquiry, Careful Reflection, Clear Discrimination, and Earnest Practice"—shaping benevolent publicly funded physicians rich in humanistic care and technological literacy. NSYSU strives to become a "key stronghold in Taiwan for cultivating publicly funded medical students dedicated to holistic care."