Introduction
Large-scale natural disasters occur often all over the world. Japan participates in international disaster relief (IDR) operations regularly. Effective IDR medical recording procedures are very important in confusing disaster situations. IDR medical records must be succinct, only containing what is necessary. However, they must have enough information for patients' analysis and evaluation later.
The authors investigated what contents are important for effective IDR medical records, and offer a proposal for a standardized record format.
Methods
In 2005 and 2006, the authors mailed a self-administered questionnaire to survey 51 doctors and nurses who had participated in IDR in the past about what is important for IDR medical records. The IDR Medical Record 2008 format was produced using the results. To evaluate its usefulness, the authors later interviewed 10 specialists of disaster medicine regarding their assessment of the previously proposed IDR Medical Record 2008 format.
Results
In the first investigation, focused on people who responded to the survey, more than half valued the following features of IDR medical records: "Well organized," "Simple and easy," "Entry language," "Easy to read," "Meets international standards," "Body diagram," "Easy symptom entry," "Durability" and "Combined with prescription." On the other hand, less than half of the participants indicated that they valued: "Compatibility with other organizations," "Electronic file," and "Combined with examination records."
For the second investigation, the authors prepared the IDR Medical Record 2008 format by using the result of the first investigation. Then, the authors made the IDR Medical Record 2012 format based on the results of the interviews.
Conclusions
The authors proposed the IDR Medical Record 2012 format, which is a practical and effective medical record format for IDR operations.

Images of the concepts of “International Health” and “International Nursing” may differ among countries. In this study, we examined the images of these concepts among 49 Fijian students, 85 Taiwanese students, and 377 Japanese students by self-administered questionnaire between 2007 and 2008. Full usable responses were received from 45 (91.8%) Fijian students, 69 (80.0%) Taiwanese students, and 352 (93.4%) Japanese students.
The results were as follows.
Ninety six percent of Japanese nursing students, 89% of Japanese medical students, 77% of Japanese student from four other faculties, 58% of Fijian students, and 26% of Taiwanese students reported their image of “International Health” to entail “Hygiene in developing countries”.
Ninety-two percent of Japanese nursing students, 92% of Japanese medical students, 40% of Fijian students, and 35% of Taiwanese students reported their image of “International Nursing” to entail “Nursing cooperation in developing countries”.
The images of “International Health” and “International Nursing” among the Fijian and Taiwanese students were of“Public health and nursing for foreigners living in Fiji or Taiwan”, and “Public health and nursing skills, and advanced medical systems in Westerns countries”. Most students in the three countries had a strong interest in-International Health and Nursing”.
Increasing chance of taking international information and knowledge of Japanese college students may influence the result of this study. Education and rearing students who will work in the field of international health was considered very important.