45 Years in Retrospect / 日本農村医学会雑誌

ABSTRACT

I graduated from the Tokyo Medical and Dental Professional School in 1948. After I completed a 1-year internship, I joined the hospital attached to the alma mater as a member of the First Department of Surgery headed by Prof. Kenkichi Kawashima in April 1949 and worked at the hospital and school for 24 years and 9 months.<BR>Professor Kawashima was a master surgeon having the highest surgical skill, as well as a true educator with exemplary character.<BR>During this period, I received a basic training and instruction in surgical techniques as a surgeon from him, while I conducted research on liver, gallbladder, and pancreas diseases.<BR>Subseqently, on October 1, 1973, I succeeded Prof. emeritus Kawashima in his position as the head director of Tsuchiura Kyodo General Hospital and have since there for 21 years. What I always kept in mind was not to damage Prof. Kawashima's reputation, to treat patients with sympathy, which Prof. Kawashima taught, and to manage the hospital soundly while training our juniors.<BR>As such, my 45-year life as a physician can be divided into the school period and the hospital period.<BR>[I The school period]<BR>Majoring in abdoninal and thoracic surgery, I particularly threw myself into the studies of liver, gallbladder and pancreas diseases, and contributed to (1) the development of a cholangioscope, (2) advances in the treatment of malignant diseases in the liver, gallbladder and pancreas, and (3) clarification of pathogenesis of cholelithiasis, in particular strawberry-like gallbladder.<BR>[II The Tsuchiura Kyodo General Hospital period]<BR>In this period, I put emphasis on the providing of medical care to regional farmers and residents. For that purpose, I strove to restructure the hospital as a full-scale complete medical care facility, namely, a congregation of differently specialized centers.<BR>The subjects that I concentrated on included (1) enlargement and improvement of the facilities in the Rural Health Care Center, (2) establishmeht of a perinatal center, (3) construction of a new Emergency Life-saving Center, (4) approval as a Local Cancer Center of Ibaraki Prefecture, (5) cooperation with Santenu Senile Care House, and (6) AIDS.<BR>When I look back on my 45-year career as a physician, my respected professors who taught us in the school and the juniors with whom studies were conducted together were recalled.<BR>I express my sincere gratitude to the chairman of Ibaraki Prefectural Koseiren and the officers who entrusted me with all the responsibillities of the hospital management, and the entire medical staff who were devoted to developing the hospital together with me.<BR>These are friends with whom I have openly consulted for all problems which I faced since I entered the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine. I will share that joy by living together with friends.<BR>Finally, what I would like to say is that I wish to continue to work for activating the association and medicine in which foresight and creative opinions of vigorous young people are respected and encouraged.