This study aims to analyze the perinatal care provided to non-Japanese speakers in one hospital in Tokyo from 1990 to 2001. It attempts to identify critical issues in perinatal care services and to recommend measures which should be taken to improve them.
Two major problems were identified: firstly, communication difficulties between health-care providers and the women and, secondly, a severe lack of information available to the women regarding health, medical and welfare services in Japan.
In particular, communication difficulties were a big burden for health care providers in that they presented an obstacle to collecting medical histories, to finding out about symptoms, to establishing good rapport with the patients and to providing spiritual support. It also made it difficult to provide health care based on informed consent.
Systematic assistance from medical interpreters is urgently needed in order to provide foreign women with the same level of care as that provided to Japanese patients.

Objective: The sports community has placed its great hope on pharmacist since the establishment of the Accredited Sports Pharmacist System.  Thus, we constructed an anti-doping database for pharmacist so that pharmacist can support appropriate drug use and contribute to the sports community.
Methods: The database was constructed by using Microsoft®Access 2007, based on our previously prepared anti-doping list.
Results: 686 prescription drugs and 268 ingredients for non-prescription drug were registered in the data base.  It was able to retrieve the advisability of use for athlete, blood half-life and the other notes of the drugs easily and promptly.
Conclusion: We confirm that pharmacist can provide drug information easily, promptly and from the viewpoint of pharmaceutics by utilizing the database including necessary information for anti-doping.

Objective: The effectiveness of palliative care for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has not been fully validated. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of palliative care interventions on ALS patients using the Integrated Palliative care Outcome Scale (IPOS). Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on ALS patients at National Hospital Organization Yamagata National Hospital who received interventions from the palliative care team between November 2020 and December 2022 and were proxy-evaluated using IPOS. Results: Eleven patients were included in the analysis. Before and after the palliative care team intervention, the total IPOS score improved significantly from 24 to 18.9 (p=0.032), and the score for “Have you felt at peace” improved from 2 to 1 (p=0.031). Conclusion: Palliative care interventions may help alleviate suffering in ALS patients. However, further studies with larger sample sizes and long-term observational research are required to confirm these findings.

With the enactment of the amended Anti-Discrimination Act, which mandates the provision of reasonable accommodations, the urgent task for all health professional education institutions is to establish a support system for students with developmental disabilities. On the other hand, they are also required to fulfill their social accountability through quality assurance in education, such as the implementation of outcome-based education curriculum. In order to consider how to balance reasonable accommodations for students with developmental disabilities, quality assurance in education, and social accountability in undergraduate medical education, Professionalism Subcommittee held a workshop on April 22, 2023. The participants engaged in active discussions during the workshop.　Through a post-workshop survey, educational needs and challenges in supporting students with developmental disabilities were clarified, providing insights for future Subcommittee activities.