We report a case of temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJD) in a patient diagnosed with a long-term illness accompanied by psychological symptoms. A 79-year-old woman presented with a 10-year history of pain around both TMJs. She was diagnosed with TMJD and received anti-inflammatory pain medications, as well as oral appliance therapy ; however, her symptoms persisted. Although psychosocial factors were considered to be contributors to her condition, the patient refused psychological therapy and sought treatment at a clinic that specialized in Kampo medicine. Considering her abdominal signs, which included upper abdominal muscle strain and middle epigastrium tenderness, the patient was prescribed saikokeishito (SAKT). Her TMJD and psychological symptoms improved rapidly following 2-week SAKT treatment (5.0 g/day). Individualized treatment using Kampo medicine may be potentially useful for rapid symptom improvement in patients with TMJD. This case report highlights that treatment by pattern (sho) identification may be effective for rapid improvement of TMJD symptoms.

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.

In 2015, the Japan Council for Kampo Medical Education was established to create a basic curriculum for Kampo medical education that could be implemented in medical schools nationwide. After conducting a needs assessment, we decided on a lecture time of 240 minutes. To set learning objectives, we formed groups for “history,” “examination methods and patterns,” “effects of Kampo medicine,” “clinical cases,” “acupuncture and moxibustion,” and “evaluation.” The teaching contents were incorporated. Then, model slides and lecture guides containing these teaching contents were created, and textbooks based on these contents were published in 2020. In 2021, these overall efforts and contents were made public nationwide, providing an opportunity for the introduction of this curriculum at each university.

“Therapeutic self” is the foundation that every healthcare professional should acquire. It is an important theme in professionalism education, which aims to educate learners about the attitudes needed to be a good doctor. It is assumed that as learners gain “resonance (subjective estimation) “ and “objective estimation” , they will be able to improve patient-doctor interactions and achieve a good balance with therapeutic self.　In this article, firstly we explain the concepts associate with therapeutic self, then we introduce the strategy aimed at cultivating the therapeutic self in professionalism education: Through fieldwork training in a community, we aim to make the students more aware of the importance of the trust relationship between doctors and patients. We also aim to raise awareness about how healthcare professionals should be. An objective assessment of the therapeutic self was done using conversation analysis.

Introduction: No formal curriculum has been formulated for teaching behavioral science to undergraduate medical students in Japan.
Method: We conducted a survey using the Delphi method to investigate the required competency in behavioral science for graduates in medicine. Then, we developed an outcome-oriented curriculum for teaching behavioral science.
Results: We propose an educational module of behavioral science consisting of 15 sessions of 90-minute lectures, small group discussions, and practice.
Discussion: We recommend including not only lectures but also practices according to problem-based learning as well as team-based learning in the curriculum to achieve the target outcome.