Keio University conducted practical training based on community diagnosis as part of an interprofessional education program involving three healthcare faculties: the School of Medicine, the Faculty of Nursing and Medical Care, and the Faculty of Pharmacy. This training took place in Wakkanai City (Hokkaido), Minakami Town (Gunma), and Mino City (Gifu). Students engaged in data collection, hypothesis setting, fieldwork-based hypothesis verification, and explored solutions to community issues. Through this process, they learned about the importance of experiencing residents' daily lives firsthand, the interconnectedness of various community factors, and collaborative approaches to problem-solving. The program offered students the opportunity to understand community dynamics and teamwork, while engaging in active trial-and-error learning that fostered independent learning and problem-solving skills.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is 1 of the 2 major phenotypes of chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which afflicts millions of individuals throughout the world with debilitating symptoms that impair function and quality of life. Further, IBD often affects women during childbearing age. Indeed, UC activity frequently increases during pregnancy, and the medications used to induce remission may adversely affect the health of the mother and the unborn child. We report successful induction of a remission in a UC case who experienced a flare-up in the first trimester of pregnancy. Upon relapse, she was treated with steroids and adsorptive granulomonocytapheresis (GMA) with the Adacolumn plus tacrolimus. This combination therapy induced a stable remission that was maintained during her entire pregnancy. She gave birth to a healthy child at 36 weeks of pregnancy with no maternal or fetal complications. Our experience indicates that GMA, as a non-drug therapeutic intervention with a favorable safety profile, plus tacrolimus might be a relevant treatment option for patients with active IBD during pregnancy. A future study of a large cohort of pregnant patients should strengthen our findings.
Child ; Cohort Studies ; Colitis, Ulcerative* ; Female ; Humans ; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases ; Mothers ; Parturition ; Phenotype ; Pregnancy Trimester, First ; Pregnancy* ; Quality of Life ; Recurrence ; Steroids ; Tacrolimus* ; Ulcer*