To clarify how students' awareness is linked to their understanding of Kampo medicine, we carried out a questionnaire and test for 94 fourth-year medical students (MS) following all the lectures at Yamaguchi University School of Medicine.Gender was not associated with performance in the test.MS having been admitted to an undergraduate program had a significantly better performance record in the test than did MS who had passed the usual university entrance examinations (P < 0.0001).MS who had experienced the efficacy of Kampo medicine had a significantly better performance record in the test than did MS who had not.Understanding of both the merits and demerits of Kampo medicine, a desire to see bedside teaching of Kampo medicine currently or in the future, and a desire to integrate Kampo medicine with primary care in the future were associated with a better performance record in the test.Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that admission to an undergraduate program (odds ratio (OR) = 6.9) and having experienced the efficacy of Kampo medicine (OR = 4.5) were independently contributing factors to a good performance record in the test.Taken together, these results suggest that experiencing efficacy and bedside teaching are needed to increase understanding of Kampo medicine for MS.

Aim of the present study was to statistically evaluate the examination rule with use of a questionnaire obtained from physicians regarding treatment for chillness of the limbs, and to prove the clinical usefulness of the database. The database showed that tokishigyakukagoshuyushokyoto was the most frequently used to treat chillness of the limbs, and subsequently keishikajutsubuto, hachimijiogan, and tokishakuyakusan were ranked as drugs with wide use. When physicians determined a kampo formulation suitable for each patient, they used findings specific for the kampo formulation, but not uniform findings obtained from the four traditional examination methods (i.e., inspection, listening and smelling, interviewing, palpitation). There was a statistical difference in the selection mode of drugs among physicians. In a simulation obtained from a questionnaire, there was a positive association between time (time X) to the start of becoming physically warm in the limbs, and time (time Y) to remission (R² = 0.971, P = 0.014). The formula (Y = 4.379 X−0.519), which could predict time Y on the basis of information on time X, was able to accurately monitor the clinical courses of 7 responders to treatment for chillness of the limbs. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that the database constructed in the present study may be useful for evaluation of traditional Kampo medicine, and might allow us to perform more fittingly personalized Kampo medicine in the near future.

Many postpartum women experience various poor physical conditions and are unresponsive to Western medical treatments. In such cases, treatments with Kampo medicine have so far focused on improving qi deficiency alone or both qi and blood deficiencies. This study describes the three cases of the patients for whom a favorable outcome was achieved despite a relatively poor prognosis by better understanding their status before pregnancy and their conditions during pregnancy and delivery, and by combining treatments for liver­qi stagnation with those for improving prenatal or postnatal qi deficiency.

At the 71st Annual Meeting of the Japan Society for Oriental Medicine held in August 2021, we performed a special program focusing on education in Kampo medicine, “Pre-graduation and post-graduation education in Kampo medicine for the next generation.” As a part of this project, we constructed the “Common Kampo test” based on the “Standard lectures on Kampo” as a web-based test using Moodle, and then the test was conducted in the form of a web test with 163 participants. The commentary of the “Common Kampo test” was live-streamed and was viewed by many participants, including students, educators and academics from all over Japan. In this paper, we report on the series covering the construction of the web system, creation of questions, answer results, and commentary on answers. With the recent popularization of tablet devices and smartphones, this web-based test system has the potential to become a scientifically based and optimal learning system not only for students but also for medical professionals such as doctors, pharmacists, and nurses.