Report of Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University

Report of Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University

 

Country / Regions

Japan

School

Osaka Metropolitan University

Elective period

29th July to 2nd August 2024

 

From Jul. 29th to Aug. 2nd, 2024, I had a chance to observe American medical care and medical school at Thomas Jefferson University. First of all, I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to those who supported me during this program. I wouldn’t have been lucky enough to be there without your help.

I applied for this program to expand and deepen my perspective by looking at medicine in a different environment. As expected, patients there had diverse backgrounds of race, economic level, and health insurance status. At one of the JeffHOPE clinics, I had an opportunity to see a skin rash on a black woman’s arm. It was new for me because we rarely see black skin in Japan. Also, I saw more homeless people than I thought, not only in the hospital but also throughout the town. It seemed that the homeless population had a considerable influence on healthcare services in the U.S. Although there was a wide variety of patients, doctors treated them equally, which I thought was nice.

What I was surprised at the most about U.S. medical care is its high efficiency. At the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, they are using an electronic health record system called Epic. Almost everything is done through this system, so I had seen little paperwork during my shadow. It also has Secure Chat where health care workers can talk about their patients remotely. You can access Epic from your smartphone or even outside of the hospital, so you don’t have to go to the hospital early in the morning or stay there late at night just to see medical records on hospital computers. Hospitals in Japan are using this kind of electronic systems too, but still relying on some paperwork. I found there is more to be done to save time in Japanese medical care.

I think, however, efficiency is not always the priority. Sometimes we need to care about quality or compassion more. The endoscopy procedure I observed looked, for the lack of better word, a bit sloppy. I noticed there were several differences only in the field of endoscopy. Medical care in Japan usually takes time, but we can be proud of our delicate procedure and kindness to patients. It is important to embrace others’ strengths and merge them with ours.

Lastly, I’d like to mention medical students’ ability. I’d heard that medical students in the U.S. are much more capable than Japanese students, but still, I was impressed. They have nearly full access to Epic and work like doctors. When I observed Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine, students were doing lots of presentations to attending physicians, and they discussed patients’ treatment and plans based on their presentations. Medical students were granted as team members, and they were already responsible for their actions.

It was such a precious moment for me to observe medicine in the U.S. I’m sure that this experience gave me motivation to study harder and some insight to make Japanese medicine better.