ABSTRACT
<p>We conducted a survey of Kampo medicine prescribing rates, and Kampo medicine awareness in first- and second-year resident physicians at three general hospitals in Hiroshima, Japan, to inform future Kampo medicine education strategies.<br>Overall, 85.7% of the resident physicians were interested in Kampo medicine, and 70.8% wanted to practice it. Furthermore, 57.8% of the resident physicians had prescribed Kampo medicine, and of these, about 30% were prescribing it a few times per month, with both the percentage of prescribing physicians and the frequency of prescription being higher than expected. In total, 90.8% of the resident physicians wanted to observe outpatient Kampo medicine clinics and learn about Kampo medicine in their postgraduate clinical training.<br>Overall, 97.4% of the resident physicians thought that seminars and lectures on Kampo medicine are needed, choosing responses that Western medicine is insufficient in some cases (27.0%) and that Kampo medicine is better than Western medicine in some cases (26.4%) among the choices for answers to the need for seminars and lectures. Meanwhile, the reasons for not having an interest in Kampo medicine were : having fewer opportunities to study it ; and feeling that it has a negative image (seeing it as outdated and unscientific). We think that appropriate Kampo medicine education for these physicians would reduce its negative image. The results of this survey suggest that resident physicians need a substantial education in Kampo medicine.</p>
ABSTRACT
In 2012, twenty student presentations were given at the 63 rd Annual Meeting of the Japan Society for Oriental Medicine in Kyoto. The student presentations were well-received and prompted many fruitful discussions. These presentations are useful in student education, and are seen as playing an important role for the future of Kampo medicine. We also think student presentations are important for promoting leadership and public speaking skills.<br>Therefore, it is hoped that such student presentations will continue as a vital component of students' education in the future, at this annual meeting of the Society. Seen from a position as coordinator of these student presentations, it was obvious that each educational leader played an important role in the students' poster presentations, and in aiding and directing them in their research. Although abstracts for the student presentations were not published, the common topics discussed, along with an outline of discussions from the meeting, are summarized here.
ABSTRACT
Early diagnosis of drug-induced pneumonitis (DP) is important because timely drug withdrawal will significantly reduce the risk of irreversible fibrosis. Although DP is diagnosed based on the patient's history, physical examinations and laboratory data, a definitive diagnosis of DP is difficult because the clinical and laboratory data are often nonspecific. And the diagnostic methods for DP are still an area of debate. Furthermore, DP has characteristics similar to infectious pneumonia and collagen-vascular disease-related pulmonary fibrosis.Thus, infectious pneumonia and collagen-vascular disease-related pulmonary fibrosis are important considerations for the differential diagnosis of DP. The drug-induced lymphocyte stimulation test (DLST) is widely used to diagnose drug-induced pneumonia in Japan. However, the DLST is not reliable for the diagnosis of DP because the false-positive and-negative rates are relatively high and there are other limitations with the DLST.On the other hand, serum KL-6 produced by type II pneumocytes is a useful marker for the diagnosis of DP, because serum KL-6 levels are high in DP but low in bacterial pneumonia, <i>Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia </i>and <i>Chlamydia pneumoniae </i>pneumonia. Other laboratory methods related to DP are also described in this article. Some herbal medicines may also induce DP. However, in several reports of herbal medicine-induced pneumonitis, DP was often diagnosed with DLST and/or infection was not excluded. Once the diagnosis of DP is definite, we should not continue using the causative drug, even if it is useful for the treatment of a specific disease. Clearly, the definitive diagnosis of DP involves careful consideration.