Welcome to Akita University Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine

Dean Tomonori Habuchi

Akita University School of Medicine was founded in 1970 as the first post-2nd World War medical school in Japan. Driven by the strong enthusiasm of the people in Akita Prefecture, the former Akita Prefectural Central Hospital was transferred to the national government and became the educational hospital belonging to the Faculty of Medicine. The School of Health Sciences was established in 1978 as the School of Nursing attached to the Faculty of Medicine, and was merged with the Faculty of Medicine in 1990 as Akita University Junior College of Medical Technology (3-year course), and then reorganized into the School of Health Sciences (4-year course) in 2002. In 2009, Akita University School of Medicine was converted to a graduate school and renamed Akita University Graduate School of Medicine, making a fresh start as a graduate school consisting of the Department of Medicine and the Department of Health Sciences. Since the establishment in 1970, more than 5,000 graduates of the Graduate School of Medicine and the School of Medicine have been actively working as leaders in various fields of medicine.

Based on this background, Akita University School of Medicine and its affiliated hospitals have earned the deep trust and reputation of the local community by contributing to the medical care of Akita Prefecture and other regions. Along with advanced medical care and world-leading research, we herein confirm to make the maximum effort to support the reliable medical care system of Akita Prefecture and the health of its citizens.

The missions of Akita University Graduate School of Medicine and the School of Medicine are education, research, and medical care. Let me briefly introduce the characteristics of each.

The educational curriculum of the School of Medicine is characterized by the "Akita Model" of integrated education that seamlessly links pre- and post-graduation. In 2020, the Post-Clinical Clerkship Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) will be officially implemented. Notably, Akita University has been implementing a state-of-the-art education and evaluation system by introducing its own advanced OSCE in 2001 to evaluate medical skills at the time of graduation. In addition, Akita University receives full support from the Akita Medical Association and all major medical institutions in Akita Prefecture so that students can receive excellent practical training at local medical institutions from their first year to their sixth year. The Department of Health Sciences also offers a variety of practical training and exercises through active cooperation with local medical institutions and municipalities. The Department of Physical Therapy and the Department of Occupational Therapy are characterized by the small number of students, which allows for a very close relationship between students and faculty. The Simulation Education Center is located on campus and is open not only to students but also to a wide range of health care professionals in the prefecture for practical skills training. Furthermore, by actively developing and implementing new educational methods, such as medical interview training in English from the first year, a web system for students, and e-Learning, we are building a highly motivated and systematic curriculum from the first year to the final year of study. These advanced efforts have been successful, and we have achieved good results in the national examinations for physicians, nurses, physical therapists, and occupational therapists every year. It is also noteworthy that we received an extremely high evaluation in the field-specific evaluation by the Japan Medical Education Evaluation Organization (JMEDE) in 2021.

We are also active in sending students abroad for short periods of time and accepting students from abroad. Every year, about 10 students from the Department of Medicine receive support from the School of Medicine International Exchange Fund to study abroad at medical schools or medical research institutes. The Department of Health Sciences has an inter-faculty agreement with the Alice Lee Center for Nursing Studies at the National University of Singapore for mutual exchange of students.

The Graduate School of Medicine conducts unique and cutting-edge research from basic to clinical medicine, and continues to disseminate its findings to the world. In the field of oncology, we are engaged in research on the microenvironment surrounding cancer cells, development of new therapeutic agents for hematopoietic tumors (cancer), pharmacogenetics of various therapeutic agents including anticancer drugs, various cell death studies, and obesity and cancer progression. In other areas, we have published excellent results in research on COVID-19, pneumonia and severity of influenza, molecular mechanisms of sleep, and novel immune cells. The hospital has also been active in medical-technical collaboration, and has developed and commercialized, for example, an automated rapid pathological diagnosis device for cancer, which is attracting much attention.

In 2020, the School of Medicine established the General Physician Center as a center for training physicians with comprehensive medical skills who will support future regional medical care. In 2021, the Advanced Emergency and Critical Care Center will be established to further enhance our emergency and hyper-acute medical care system. We have been performing a large number of robotic surgeries using the DaVinci surgical system since 2012 and cardiovascular surgeries in the hybrid operating room since 2021. In terms of the number of registered cancer patients, we have treated the largest number of cancer patients and patients with acute cardiovascular diseases in the prefecture in recent years. We believe that our University Hospital has been contributing greatly to protect the medical care of the citizens of the prefecture and provides advanced medical care to the world.

For more information on the results of education, research, and medical treatment, please visit the Akita University website, the School of Medicine website, and the websites of each department and faculty.

We surely make maximum efforts to save the lives and maintain high-quality healthy life of people as the last bastion of community medicine, promote cutting-edge medical and health sciences research, and nurture medical professionals who will become leaders in both clinical practice and research, through the concerted efforts of faculty members and students.

Tomonori Habuchi, Dean, Graduate School of Medicine