There are some issues concerning the domains of “attitude” and “habit” which are indispensable for medical students, such as motivation for problem-based learning and acquiring skills for smooth communication with medical staff and patients. In addition, some well-known limitations exist in medical education in these domains. Kochi Medical School has introduced an admissions-office (attitude-evaluation) system for enrollment selection to assess the abilities that applicants have acquired through experiences since birth. Although this system has a very short history, a follow-up survey 1 year after admission strongly suggests that this type of entrance examination system based on attitude evaluation is effective.

Background: The AO entrance examination for the Medical Course at Kochi Medical School aims to select candidates who are not only knowledgeable but also exhibit strong interpersonal and presentation skills. This study sought to determine the impact of the AO exam’s group work and presentation components on students’ success post-graduation.Methods: Clinical training supervisors’ evaluations of interpersonal and presentation abilities were compared between AO entrance exam candidates and other selected candidates.Results: AO entrants showed superior performance in establishing patient-physician relationships, participating in team medicine, and delivering case presentations compared to their counterparts.Discussion: The AO entrance examination at Kochi Medical School proves to be an effective tool for assessing candidates’ interpersonal and presentation skills, which are essential for medical practitioners.

Introduction: several clinical training hospitals have their own resident mentor systems in Japan. However, the details and effects of the system still remain unclear.　Objective: The aim of this study is to introduce Okayama University Hospital’s resident mentor system and to investigate its effectiveness based on mentees’ evaluations.　Method: A questionnaire survey was conducted on residents using the system.　Results: 32 (78.0%) of 41 residents used the system. 28 (87.5%) of them completed the survey, indicating most residents were satisfied with the currently-used system.　Discussion: We will conduct a more detailed questionnaire survey for mentors and mentees to further improve the resident mentor system.

This study examined whether medical students were able to consider themselves to have practiced patient-centered team medicine through the practice of small group IPE. Undergraduate medical, pharmacy, and nursing students during Clinical Clerkship were asked to complete case-based clinical reasoning and treatment/nursing planning in small groups, and a questionnaire was administered to the IPE. The medical students felt that they were able to practice clinical reasoning and treatment planning, the pharmacy students felt that they were able to propose countermeasures against side effects of treatment, and the nursing students felt that they were able to provide necessary information to the medical team and practice patient-centered medicine with the medical team.　Each department had different objectives they considered when practicing team-based medicine. It is important to incorporate each of these elements in IPE.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the changes in the sense of difficulty hospital staff felt toward palliative care before and after a palliative care team of the pediatric hospital started in-hospital consultation. A self-administered questionnaire about the difficulty, consisting of 21 items in five areas, was used to conduct a survey in 2015 for the pre-consultation period, and in 2018 for the post-consultation period. Responses were obtained from 222 people in the pre-consultation period (response rate of 70.9%) and from 384 people in the post-consultation period (response rate of 87.3%). Over 70% of the respondents were nurses and midwives. A lower sense of difficulty was observed in three of the items including “relief of painful symptoms”, “family care during caregiving”, and “support when oneself and surrounding staff feeling inadequate and lost”. Further, a significant decrease was observed in the sense of difficulty in six items reported by nurses and midwives in departments receiving the interventions. Eleven of the 16 cases in which the palliative care team intervened involved multiple requests for intervention for 2 patients with pain control difficulties, suggesting that the consultation activities contributed to the decrease in the sense of difficulty experienced by nurses and midwives.

Objective: Monitoring the prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants is important due to concerns regarding infectivity, transmissibility, immune evasion and disease severity. We evaluated the temporal and regional replacement of previous SARS-CoV-2 variants by the emergent strains, Alpha and Delta. Methods: We obtained the results of polymerase chain reaction screening tests for variants conducted in multiple commercial laboratories. Assuming that all previous strains would be replaced by one variant, the new variant detection rate was estimated by fitting a logistic growth model. We estimated the transmission advantage of each new variant over the pre-existing virus strains. Results: The variant with the N501Y mutation was first identified in the Kinki region in early February 2021, and by early May, it had replaced more than 90% of the previous strains. The variant with the L452R mutation was first detected in the Kanto-Koshin region in mid-May, and by early August, it comprised more than 90% of the circulating strains. Compared with pre-existing strains, the variant with the N501Y mutation showed transmission advantages of 48.2% and 40.3% in the Kanto-Koshin and Kinki regions, respectively, while the variant with the L452R mutation showed transmission advantages of 60.1% and 71.9%, respectively. Discussion In Japan, Alpha and Delta variants displayed regional differences in the replacement timing and their relative transmission advantages. Our method is efficient in monitoring and estimating changes in the proportion of variant strains in a timely manner in each region.