Two years have passed since a patient who started to use the respirator for a tuberculosis sequela and chronic respiratory failure at home. During this period, the patient got several short-term admissions into the hospital. After his first discharge, the patient and his family felt anxiety about recupration at home. It was the first time for us to provide home care services to a respirator wearing patient. However, the shift to recuperation at home was realized as an understanding was reached between physicians who decided upon care home and the patient's wife who wished “to live with the husband together”. The patient is now playing a role as a father and as a husband, and he is leading a full life. In this study, the personal and familial circumstances of the patient, decision-making about home care and community support were analized. We coucluded that there were several important factors for successful recuperation at home:specification of contents of concrete medical support to a patient and a family;an immediate suitable action at the time of change of a patient's condition;taking periodic rests of a patient and a family;and a good family relationship.
Patients ; Ventilators, Mechanical ; seconds ; Family ; Home

We evaluated the interview skills of 46 sixth year medical students (32 men, 14 women) in our outpatient clinic. Six items were evaluated, including the manner in which students responded to patients, the number of times students interrupted patients' statements with closed-ended questions, and the extent to which students maintained eye contact with patients. We found that students interrupted patients every 46.2 seconds on average, and often did not make eye contact with tha patients. It became clear that, although we teach medical interview skills to students, students do not learn these skills very well. We suggest that in order to properly educate medical students, close cooperation between departments is needed.

We evaluated basic surgical skills in students using the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). The study was conducted on 101 sixth-grade medical students (67 males, 34 females) at Kawasaki Medical School in 1993. Theme A (tying of a silk suture) was given to 44 students, and theme B (tying of nylon suture using surgical instruments) was given to 57 students. The following items were evaluated (1) handling of surgical instruments, (2) suturing, (3) knot tying, and (4) suture removal. The average score for theme B was slightly lower than that for theme A. The average score for knot tying was lower than scores for the other items. Thus, it was revealed that all students were not good at tying knots. These scores for minor surgery correlated with the scores for other skills as evaluated by the OSCE. In conclusion, the OSCE appears to be an appropriate method for evaluating basic surgical skills.

Objective: In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey of hospital pharmacists throughout Japan with the aim of identifying the most-requested in-hospital preparations and off-label use drugs, and exploring the possibility of commercializing them.Methods: The Commercialization Study Group of the Japanese Society of Hospital Pharmacists conducted a questionnaire survey on the Japanese Society of Hospital Pharmacists website targeting hospital pharmacists who are members of the Japanese Society of Hospital Pharmacists. The period of the survey was from February 1, 2019 until January 21, 2020. In the questionnaire, the respondents wrote specific product names (generic names), specifications, and dosage forms that they would like to see improved and made commercially available in a free-text format. In addition, respondents chose their reasons for wanting the product to be improved or made commercially available from a list.Results: A total of 1,627 drugs were requested to be made commercially available. After duplicates and insufficient descriptions were excluded, the total was 553. The drugs that were most frequently requested were Levothyroxine suppositories, followed by Mohs’ ointment and Ulinastatin vaginal suppositories.Discussion: This survey identified certain drugs that pharmacists want to be commercialized and the specific reasons why. In-hospital preparations not only benefit patients whose diseases are becoming more complex and difficult to treat with existing prescription drugs, but also enable pharmacists to demonstrate their abilities. We believe that the commercialization of these important in-hospital preparations and off-label drugs will help avoid various risks associated with dispensing them and enhance the pharmacy profession. For this reason, pharmaceutical drug companies should conduct further surveys on the actual use of and literature research on the efficacy and safety of the drugs that were ranked high on the questionnaire and start considering their commercialization.