Objectives : To determine factors related to peoples' preference for visiting home-doctors when experiencing new health problems.
Method : A questionnaire survey was conducted of people receiving annual health checkups in municipalities in the vicinity of Jichi Medical University Hospital. We surveyed personal characteristics, test equipment, having of a home-doctor, and answers to an assumed scenario (asking about willingness to visit a home-doctor in case of getting certain health problems).
According to the responses to the scenario, we divided the subjects into two groups (a home-doctor group: visiting a home-doctor; and a specialist group: not visiting a home-doctor) and statistically compared the two groups.
Results : In the analytic sample of 1,829, the home-doctor group numbered 1,097 individuals (60%) and the specialist group numbered 732 individuals (40%). The home-doctor group statistically had more home-doctors than the specialist group (adjusted odds ratio, 95% confidence interval: 2.47, 2.00-3.05).
More home-doctors in the home-doctor group had test equipment than home-doctors in the specialist group: Gastrointestinal test equipment (gastroscopy, colonoscopy, or ultrasonography) (adjusted odds ratio, 95% confidence interval: 1.39, 1.06-1.83).
Conclusion : We revealed two factors relating to the preference for visiting home-doctors: First, those people had home-doctors, and, second, the home-doctors had test equipment.

Introduction: Primary care includes general outpatient clinics and primary/secondary emergency outpatient clinics; however, the differences in treatment settings between these clinics may affect the development of educational programs for postgraduate clinical training. This study aimed to retrospectively investigate the content experienced by residents in community-based outpatient training, which includes general ambulatory training and primary/secondary emergency training, and to compare the differences between items that are more likely to be experienced in general outpatient clinics and those that are more likely to be experienced in the emergency department.Methods: The number of trainees who experienced symptoms and diseases specified in the national residency system was calculated during general ambulatory training and primary emergency training. These numbers were compared by the Fisher's exact test.Results: Items suitable for learning clinical reasoning, such as headache, and items suitable for continuous treatment of chronic diseases, such as dementia, were experienced significantly more frequently in general ambulatory training than emergency training.Conclusion: The symptoms and diseases that are likely to be experienced in general ambulatory training were extracted. These items were considered to be consistent with the purpose of general outpatient training.

Since the Infection Control Team (ICT) was organized in 1999, our hospital has been engaged in evidence-based operations against nosocomial infections. The ICT's major activities included guidance in preventive measures against infections, surveillance involving continuous environmental monitoring, proposition as regards prescription of antibacterial medicines, and consultation with clinicians about prophylaxis. The team comprising physicians, nurses, pharmacists and clinical laboratory technicians has made expert propositions to clinicians. To be concrete, the team members, with the liaison clerk playing a central role, met with physicians in charge or with other staff members of the hospital, studied the infection cases in question, and presented the study findings to the clinicians. Fundamentally, therefore, it is not that the ICT intervenes in the affairs of the clinical department by way of directions but that it presents clinicians with the ideas gained through discussion between ICT members and physicians and other hospital staffers. While cementing a relationship of mutual trust between hospital employees, the ICT is expected to engage in nosocomial infection prevention activities by joining forces transdeoartmentally.
Clinical ; Hospitals ; Infection Control ; seconds ; Prophylactic