May 1st, 1952, saw the inception of the Japanese Fellows Program, a yearlong internship for Japanese doctors to work alongside U.S. Navy Hospital, Yokosuka sailors and staff. This partnership was initially suggested by General Douglas MacArthur and the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery as a part of the postwar Japanese recovery program defined in the Treaty of San Francisco. The program sought to augment a blossoming allied relationship by partnering American and Japanese physicians in a way to increase cooperation during the postwar period.
U.S. Navy doctors would help to introduce Western methods, rationale and practices, while the Japanese civilian physicians would introduce their culture traditions while providing the much needed support for the new cooperative operating environment. Another mission of the fellows, possibly a far more important one, is to act as a liaison and provide specialized medical translation with our joint partner Japanese hospitals.
During the transfer of acutely ill servicemembers or their families. Here, their(JA fellows') life saving expertise(expert skill) has helped to enforce(strengthen) a tradition of ready, reliable care needed in this forward deployed area of operations. This partnership continues to enrich our shared effectiveness and the projection of medical power in the Indo-Pacific region. We spoke to several of the fellows to get an understanding of their role and its importance.
Our role is to transfer patients who need further care from this hospital, USNH to Japanese hospitals. Many American patients have never received medical care in Japan before. They and their families are sometimes hospitalized, undergo surgeries or give birth in Japan. We help them to experience those tough situations through our medical knowledge and understanding of the differences of the medical system between two countries.
So our current role at this US Naval Hospital is to transfer critically ill patients to the local Japanese hospitals. And so we translate and advocate for them and we personally transport and provide care for each of the patients. In Japan, finding a hospital or a physician who can provide specific needed treatment for the patients often proves to be very challenging and ultimately being able to arrange patient transfer successfully has been a very meaningful experience for the American patients.
In Iwakuni the relationship between the clinic and the Iwakuni Clinical Center has significantly improved since we came here. So the deepening of relationship and understanding will help us to provide better medical care.
Our Japanese fellowship has been around for many years and they actually take care of some of the sickest patients at our hospital. The hospitals nearby, we have established a pretty strong connection with them(the hospitals nearby), in large part due to the Japanese fellowship.
It's important a lot of times in these critical cases to have physician to physician communication. It's been an amazing feat for them to have helped us develop a really strong relationship with our host nation hospitals so that we can be a lot more secure in transferring patients out when they're not able to be cared for here at this base.
For more information about the Japanese Fellows program, please visit our website.
https://yokosuka.tricare.mil/About-Us/Fellowship-Program
| Date Taken: | 03.13.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 03.13.2023 21:53 |
| Category: | Package |
| Video ID: | 876389 |
| VIRIN: | 230313-O-TE110-562 |
| Filename: | DOD_109509128 |
| Length: | 00:03:30 |
| Location: | YOKOSUKA, KANAGAWA, JP |
| Downloads: | 4 |
| High-Res. Downloads: | 4 |
This work, USNMRTC Yokosuka Japanese Fellows Medical Partnership Program, by Gabriel Archer, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
