Goals and Plans for 2011

Takashi Ohyama
President

The recent progress made in medicine and dentistry is astonishing, and advances in these areas are expected to accelerate in the near future. Fundamentally, it is necessary for us to now cultivate professionals who will be prepared to develop and use the advanced medical technologies that will exist in 10 or 15 years. In order to achieve this goal, we have decided to establish a center for integrated education of medicine and dentistry, one which will conduct a continuous evaluation and review of educational contents and methods.

For example, it is said that soon one in four Japanese will be elderly. When we enter that “aged society” era, optimum, holistic care cannot be expected from dentists who are not well-versed in medicine or doctors who do not have sufficient knowledge of dentistry.

The expected transformation of the population and also of disease structures further means that medical experts cannot simply focus on their area of expertise, as one elderly person will likely suffer from multiple diseases.

From disease prevention and lifestyle guidance to diagnosis, treatment and follow-up examinations, medical experts will be expected to have knowledge of both medicine and dentistry, and intense collaboration between medical and dental professionals will be required.

A school such as TMDU can effectively lead us to such an era by adopting an integrated approach to education.

We are glad to announce that the Department of Oral Health will offer a major in Oral Health and Welfare, and the School for Dental Technicians in the Faculty of Dentistry will be reorganized and established as an Oral Health/Oral Health Technician major fi eld of study. In this program we will train high-level dental technicians who can handle implant-supported dentures, removable dentures and ceramic crowns. As we face the aging of Japanese society, we aim to achieve a systematization of this new discipline in order to train professionals who can contribute to patients’ joy of living and quality of life.

It is well-known that TMDU has many leading edge researchers. Following our 21st century Center of Excellence (COE) award, we have received high evaluations for our Global COE initiative as well.

We will continue to strengthen cooperation between medicine, dentistry and engineering by the efforts of the School of Medicine and Dentistry, the School of Healthcare, the School of Intractable Diseases, the School of Biomaterials Engineering and the School of Biomedical Science/Biomedical Science PhD Program while, at the same time, creating an interdisciplinary large-scale research project. Hence we are reviewing our organization with an eye to increased cooperation from all parties.

As a concrete example of this cooperation, we are considering the establishment of a Bio-Resource Center where important bio-resources provided by our patients in the course of operations and examinations are uniformly managed and responsibly shared throughout our school. Once we work out the appropriate ethics procedures, we may be able to use these bio-resources in any field, thus avoiding wasting valuable data or archiving it to no purpose. We believe that use of these bio-resources will result in great contributions to the promotion of basic research and clinical research. We further envision an expansion of the Center so that it can respond to requests from other universities or research centers, including pharmaceutical companies and
medical companies.

To fulfill our university hospital mission, we must enrich and promote our ability to provide community healthcare, training and development, in addition to maintaining a proper balance of research and development. The university hospital accounts for more than 50% of our total budget, and so it hardly needs to be said that it is a very important aspect of the management of our university. Currently, we receive a subsidy for managing our hospital from the Japanese government, so we keenly understand that we need to streamline our procedures so as to produce cost savings while, at the same time, securing hospital income.

We are now capable of providing greater contributions to our neighborhood and the surrounding metropolitan area as we were able to expand the emergency medical facilities which former president Dr. Suzuki established. To ensure that our university hospital is able to firmly function as a central hospital in an emergency due to a disaster or other incident, we expedited
the demolition of Building 3, which had low tolerance for earthquakes. We were able to tear down twothirds of the building before the end of the year, and the remaining third will be torn down in 2011. Construction of a new common area around M&D Tower
and the University Hospital of Medicine will be promptly carried out so as to provide safe and convenient access for ambulances and vehicles driven by outpatients.

In line with these goals, we are planning to establish a walking trail, a rest station, a parking lot, a taxi stand and automated parking in the common area. In addition, we will renovate the air-conditioning systems, plumbing and private rooms in the university hospital, with the aim of improving amenities for patients and staff.

Mindful of the aging of Japanese society, we are considering the creation of a center that provides instruction in preventive medicine, the conduct of reliable medical examinations and the provision of second opinions by the use of collaboration between the University Hospital of Medicine and the University Hospital of Dentistry. At this time we are carrying out specific deliberations on securing staff, space and facilities as well as financial resources for such a Center.

We already have a track record of research organizations in sports medicine and dentistry at this school. Hence, we have now decided to establish a “Sports Clinic” which will be responsible for the curing and rehabilitating patients, including top athletes, who have sports-related injuries. We need to promptly set up the base for this system as we have already been providing support to “Nippon,” a Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) sports team.

It is needless to say that the University’s overseas research bases are appropriate places for the promotion of research, but we have determined to make best use of them in order to cultivate a cosmopolitan sensibility in our students.

Each year, more than 30 students go overseas to Harvard University, Imperial College or an independent research destination via our overseas dispatch system. In an attempt to develop highly specialized medical experts who have a strong desire to study and who will eventually be world leaders, we decided to reward graduate students for their achievements in research by giving them overseas training opportunities. Two years ago, we established a research center for infectious diseases in Ghana, and last year we established a research center for colorectal cancer in Chile. In both cases, we dispatched resident researchers as we are promoting international joint research and the production of young researchers and highly specialized medical experts at these centers. In a new approach to achieving these goals, we dispatched four undergraduate medical students to Ghana and six to Chile for training in research methodology as part of the students’ project semester period. The students had to undertake thorough training and be endorsed by professors in the field to qualify for dispatch.

We expect that the students who were able to take advantage of this opportunity will naturally learn the nature and importance of making international contributions, the pleasure of conducting collaborative research and the joy of onsite development through the experience of living overseas, working with resident researchers, and living a research-centered life, all of which will enable them to become persons of cosmopolitan sensibility.

We must accept excellent young researchers (including international students) to our school and center their development around our goal of being the base of research and education for medicine and dentistry in Asia.

One way that we have moved in this direction is the holding of the International Summer Program (ISP) for two consecutive years. Last year, at ISP2010, we invited 25 very highly qualified students from 15 countries to study at TMDU and learn about the school via laboratory visits and other programs. Several of these excellent students have already enrolled in a doctoral course at TMDU.

In fact, more than 160 of our international students are from 22 countries in Asia, and we have a greatly increased number of international students in the field of medicine and dentistry engineering here. In sum, we are prepared to do all that we can to cultivate collaborative medical and dental professionals.

Last year, we established a research education support center in Thailand (within the premises of Chulalongkorn University) with the aim of conducting joint research and developing professionals, as we are doing at the research centers in Ghana and Chile. To be sure, we plan to develop base activities for collaborative research between medicine and dentistry especially in Asia. Taking the citation rate of TMDUrelated medical and dental journal articles into account, the University is positioned at the top rank, not only in Japan but in all of Asia, so I have the utmost confidence that we can perform brilliantly as a world-recognized base for integrated medical and dental research.

Here, I am expecting one more role: construction of a medical network for Japanese who live in Southeast Asia, including those who work in a particular locality and their families. We plan to gain the cooperation of Thai-TMDU Alumni, an organization made of Thai doctors and dentists who studied at TMDU as international students. There is already a strong demand for such efforts from the Embassy of Japan, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and the Japanese Association in Thailand, and we are expecting that once the network is in operation, there will be great advantages for both Thai and Japanese in Thailand.

The current governmental administration has been reducing the public scholarship fund for overseas dispatch of students and graduate students and the acceptance of privately-funded foreign students. We think that it is thus necessary to take new measures to support continuous influx of international students by securing a separate financial base; we are currently crafting specific ideas regarding establishment of foundation for international exchange support.

A system to efficiently use water on campus will be ready by March; significant cost savings for operational expenses is expected as a result. We have adopted a sabbatical scheme in order to improve faculty members’ motivation for pursuing education and research. We plan to hold an anniversary celebration to commemorate the founding of the University, a talkfest between the president and undergraduate/ graduate students, FD (Faculty Development) for the entire school, and other activities. We also plan to conduct deliberations for the expansion of our health administration center and our training center, and the establishment of childcare facility for sick children.

We are looking forward to a great 2011, and with your support and cooperation, I am sure that we can achieve our ambitious goals.