The Japanese Society of Social Pharmacy decided during the 34th Annual Meeting to work on and provide medication education, based on the assumption that deepening the basic level of understanding of medication will contribute to its dissemination and enlightenment regarding its appropriate use. Although medication education was introduced into junior high schools in FY 2012, considering the importance of teaching elementary school children, our society has held two training workshops for pharmacists to help them teach children about the appropriate use of medication. Offering medication education according to children’s developmental stages can help children with non-serious diseases appropriately use their necessary medication while consulting experts, and also prevents disease aggravation if children can notice side effects in the early stages. This indicates the possibility of children acquiring the ability to protect their own health (self-medication). We are convinced that medication education will serve as basic knowledge for children to understand medical care they receive in the future. Medication education is a task which should be addressed not only by school pharmacists or family pharmacists in the community, but also by all types of pharmacists as educators; thus, we hope that this workshop will be useful support for such pharmacists to provide medication education.

Sound management of hospital in Japan in general has become more and more difficult with frequent reductions in the fees officially paid to medical institutions for medical examinations and treatments, and this current situation obviously necessitates a more efficient way of hospital management and ardent efforts at improvement on the part of our hospital as well. The Division on Nursing has set the goals to implement thoroughgoing cost-management strategies and to strengthen cooperation with other divisions. For this purpose we visited the hospital wards jointly with other personnel from the Divisions of Medical Materials and Dispensary to check inventories of medical materials and to make them optimum. As a result, it was found that medical materials were often improperly placed, stored excessively, or returned inaccurately. The instructions for redefining the proper quota of the medical materials per ward, putting them in order and returning them properly in case of excess facilitated direct communication and cooperation between divisions, and resulted in inventory reduction and thus the annual costs of returning them. These efforts successfully inspired each staff member to participate voluntarily in the management of our hospital, which eventually led to reasonable inventory control of medical materials. It would be important for each division, while demonstrating its specialty, to realize the importance of cooperation to reach far greater achievements.
Hospitals ; Materials ; seconds ; cooperation ; Medical

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect between cyclists and noncyclists of pedal rates on ankle, knee, and hip joint torque during pedaling exercises. Six male cyclists (CY) and seven male noncyclists (NC) pedaled at 40, 60, 90 and 120 rpm with a power output of 200 W. The lower limb was modeled as three rigid segment links constrained to plane motion. Based on the Newton-Euler method, the equation for each segment was constructed and solved on a computer using pedal force, pedal, crank, and lower limb position data to calculate torque at the ankle, knee, and hip joints. The average planter flexor torque decreased with increasing pedal rates in both groups. The average knee extensor torque for CY decreased up to 90 rpm, and then leveled off at 120 rpm. These results were similar to NC. The average knee flexor torque in both groups remained steady over all pedal rates. The average hip extensor torque for CY decreased significantly up to 90 rpm where it showed the lowest value, but increased at 120 rpm. For NC, the average hip extensor torque did not decrease at 90 rpm compared with 60 rpm, and was significantly higher than CY at 120 rpm (CY : 28.1 ± 9.0 Nm, NC : 38.6 ± 6.7 Nm, p<0.05) . The average hip flexsor torque for NC at 120 rpm increased significanly from 90 rpm, and was significantly higher than CY (CY : 11.6±2.9 Nm, NC : 22.6±11.8 Nm, p<0.05) . These results suggest that it would be better for cyclists to select a pedal rate of between 90 to 110 rpm to minimize joint torque, and, as a result, reduce peripheral muscle fatigue.

We conducted a questionnaire survey involving 270 interns in the year 2011 at the pharmaceutical department of Teikyo University, in order to clarify pre- to post-practical training changes in: 1) the degree of pre-clinical training’s usefulness, 2) desired workplace in the future, 3) degree of satisfaction, 4) confidence degree of practical training, etc. The degree of pre-clinical training’s usefulness exceeded 80% in all training periods. Regarding the desired workplace in the future, a large proportion of students answered that they want to become a pharmacist in a pharmacy or hospital, both before and after their practical training in all training periods. Also, it was estimated that students decide their career with reference to their practical training experience. In terms of the degree of satisfaction with practical training, the proportions of those who answered “Satisfied” or “Somewhat satisfied” were: 95.1% in the 1st, 95.6% in the 2nd, and 86.1% in the 3rd periods. The confidence degree significantly increased after practical training in all periods. Because the confidence degree showed a tendency to be higher before the 3rd period of training compared to the other two periods, it was considered that students’ experience of practical training led to increased confidence degree. Regarding communication abilities, the degrees of before-after confidence degree and pre-clinical training’s usefulness were low, and, hence, it was suggested that pre-clinical training needs to be further improved regarding these areas.

  We require our students in the 4th grade to take an on-site pediatric outpatient clinic course at the Teikyo University Hospital as part of a 4-week on-site training program.  This year, 64 trainees divided into groups of 3 or 4 students took the course between June and August.  In the morning, trainees were asked to conduct clinical interviews with 287 patients’ guardians in the presence of trainers.  This was followed by the observation of consultation and treatment services provided to patients.  In the afternoon, students reported the findings obtained in medical interviews, participated in group discussions, and received supplementary lectures from trainers.  After completing the course, students were asked to fill in a questionnaire.  When asked whether they were satisfied with the course, 62.5% and 37.5% of students said “very satisfied” and “satisfied,” respectively, while 64.1%, 29.7%, and 6.2% of students said the observation of consultation and treatment services was “very good,” “good,” and “cannot say which,” respectively.  About the medical interviews, 64.1% and 34.4% said that it is “very good” and “good” to conduct them, while 1.5% said “cannot say which.”  All students said they could determine the problems faced by guardians regarding drugs in the medical interview.  The on-site pediatric outpatient care course was found to be “very useful” and “useful” by 62.5% and 35.9% of patients, respectively, while 1.6% said “cannot say which.”  In conclusion, most students were greatly satisfied with the medical interview with guardians using a questionnaire and said that it made it possible for them to closely communicate with guardians.  This result was thought to be attributable to the use of the techniques of the medical interview OSCE which the students learned prior to conducing medical interviews with guardians.

Objective: To clarify the frequency of deficient mismatch repair (dMMR) in Japanese ovarian cancer patients, we examined microsatellite instability (MSI) status and immunohistochemistry (IHC) subtypes, including endometrioid carcinoma (EMC), clear cell carcinoma (CCC), or a mixture of both (Mix). Methods: We registered 390 patients who were diagnosed with EMC/CCC/Mix between 2006 and 2015 and treated at seven participating facilities. For 339 patients confirmed eligible by the Central Pathological Review Board, MSI, IHC, and MutL homolog 1 methylation analyses were conducted. The tissues of patients with Lynch syndrome (LS)-related cancer histories, such as colorectal and endometrial cancer, were also investigated. Results: MSI-high (MSI-H) status was observed in 2/217 CCC (0.9%), 10/115 EMC (8.7%), and 1/4 Mix (25%). Additionally, loss of MMR protein expression (LoE-MMR) was observed in 5/219 (2.3%), 16/115 (14.0%), and 1/4 (25%) patients with CCC, EMC, and Mix, respectively. Both MSI-H and LoE-MMR were found significantly more often in EMC (p<0.001). The median (range) ages of patients with MMR expression and LoE-MMR were 54 (30–90) and 46 (22–76) (p=0.002), respectively. In the multivariate analysis, advanced stage and histological type were identified as prognostic factors. Conclusion The dMMR rate for EMC/CCC was similar to that reported in Western countries. In Japan, it is assumed that the dMMR frequency is higher because of the increased proportion of CCC.