11/08/17  Portland, Ore.

OHSU Family Medicine and Japan Association for the Development of Community Medicine (JADECOM) have partnered to create an International Residency Exchange Program.

JADECOM residents visit OHSU Family Medicine in Portland, Oregon for rotations that typically last three months. During their rotations JADECOM residents participate in a variety of activities including medical classes, meetings, Faculty Development sessions, clinical observations, and rotations at a variety of rural health care centers located throughout Oregon. To learn more about our Japanese exchange program, JADECOM, click here.

Below are our visitors for October, 2017.

Satoko Sasaki

Describe your hometown and family:

I call Tokyo my home. Currently, there are 12 million people living in the city, making it the largest city in Japan. There are roughly 20 medical universities in Tokyo, which means about 2,000 new students become doctors every year.

I live here with my family; father, mother and younger sister. My father worked for the government till a few years ago, and now he's working for an IT company, Fujitsu. My mother is a pianist; she plays in a piano quartet and has concerts every year. My sister is an accountant at Deloitte.

Describe your hospital / clinic: My University has four specialties which are medicine, nursing, pharmaceutical science and general science. The School of medicine has 649 students. We have two university campuses and three hospitals. The biggest hospital, Omori hospital is situated near Haneda international airport which is second biggest airport around Tokyo. Omori hospital has 948 beds, they accept 2,353 outpatients per day and 822 hospitalized patients per day. Number of operations per year is around 9,590. And number of deliveries is 1,042.

What else should we know? I worked in a travel agency for 6 years after I graduated from Keio University. While I was working there, I traveled and went to many countries including Africa, South America, and the Middle East.

My special interest is terminal care. In Japan, the age of the population is increasing. At the same time, medicine is developing so the average lifetime expectancy is greater. I hope one day to do visiting medical treatments that make it possible for families to take care of aged people at home till the time they pass.

Hisatomo Sone

Tell us about your hometown and family: My hometown, Tsukuba, is located in a suburb of Tokyo, approximately 45 minutes by train.Tsukuba is known as the "Science city" because it is home to more than 60 national research institutions and 240 private research centers.This includes, JAXA (Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency), National Institute of Physical and Chemical research, and research centers owned by Japan's major pharmaceutical companies such as Takeda.

My family includes my parents, my two younger brothers, aged 25 and 19, and myself. My father and brother are both dentists. My mother is an owner of a fitness club and my youngest brother studies at the university. My parents are originally from Taiwan, but moved to Japan and raised three kids.They are hard-working and kind.They gave us lots of love and opportunities to learn and grow. My brothers are always good to each other, share fun things and support one another.

Tell us about your hospital / clinic: My medical school is located in Shiga, which is the prefecture next to Kyoto. It lays in the countryside, there are no shops around except two convenience stores. However, I believe that one of the significant features of my university is variety. Given that Japan's medical schools typically start straight after high school, my university admits about 15 percent of people who have finished another university or once worked in companies. The percentage is the second highest in Japan.

What else should we know about you? I have special interests in family medicine because I would like to pursue my career in this field. Japan is the fastest aging society in the world and the demand for family doctors is increasing. I hope I will be able to utilize my international experience to make Japan's family medicine better for patients and their families.