A Message from the Dean
Akita University Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine was founded in 1970, the first newly-established medical school of the post-war period, thanks to the enthusiastic support of the people of Akita Prefecture. Owing to the great efforts of faculty members, graduates, and many others, our Faculty has made steady progress as a National University Medical School core center in the Northern Tohoku Region. In 2009, we set the Graduate School of Medicine, apart from the undergraduate medical education program, the Faculty of Medicine, in order to place greater emphasis on advanced global medical research as well as a solid postgraduate education system.
The Goal of Akita University Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine is to educate medical doctors, medical researchers and co-medical staff capable of bettering the health and welfare of all people of the world.
Talented entrepreneurial people who are unafraid to try new things and meet new challenges, free from the yoke of conservatism, are highly regarded and indeed cherished by our school. There are several academic programs with overriding priority in our Graduate School of Medicine. First, there is the esteemed Global COE Program “Signal Transduction in the Regulatory System and its Disorders” (a cooperative program with Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine) which aims to establish here a global center of excellence in Life Science. Another example is the “Action Research Project on Suicide Prevention”, which endeavers to solve the urgent social problem of suicide in Japan. These programs focus not only research but also on the education of excellent, world-class researchers and highly specialized medical professionals. Akita University Graduate School of Medicine is in charge of managing the “Training Program for Future Experts in Cancer Treatment and Care for the Northern Tohoku Region”, a cooperative venture between Hirosaki University, Iwate Medical University, Iwate Prefectural University and Akita University.
In our undergraduate medical education course, our School has been helping to cope with the rapidly changing social need for doctors by increasing the numbers of medical students. The acute shortage of medical doctors in many communities and so-called consequential “melt down” of the community medical care system is forcing change in the admission policies of medical schools. Our School makes a special effort to accept more students who intend to be leaders in community medical care. Also, for our undergraduate medical education, problem-oriented learning approaches such as tutorials, integrated lectures, clinical clerkships, and comprehensive community medical care practice have been introduced. Thus, we are highly committed to raising a new generation medical practitioners who will be active in community settings. Finally, the ultimate goal of both our Graduate School of Medicine and the Faculty of Medicine is to mold young enthusiastic students into top-level medical professionals with excellent ethical morals and practical abilities.
We welcome young medical students who wish to study at the forefront of medicine in Akita and to become outstanding researchers and medical practitioners.
Dean, Akita University Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine
Yutaka Motohashi,M.D.＆Ph.D.