福島県立医科大学医学部　泌尿器科学講座

当講座に、武漢大学医学部生　He Weixiang（ヘ　ウェイシャン）さんがご留学されました。

My name is He Weixiang, a medical student major in urology from Wuhan University in China. It is a great honor of me to have this chance to visit the Fukushima Medical University hospital. Hospital is busy and serious, but urology department is full of enjoyment. Then I will show my life as follow.

From 10.15 to 11.16, I studied in the urology department of FMU hospital. During the past 5 weeks, I have learned a lot and felt much difference between China and Japan.

 

I have observed much operations about urology and pediatric urology. What impressed me most was the robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP), which was the first operation I have seen in FMU hospital. Doctor Sato and Professor Kojima were sitting away from the patient and performing the operation, arms waving and feet pedaling which seemed like driving a car in the No.11 operation room. With exquisite handling from Sato and patiently explanation form Kojima, it was easy to understand this difficult operation, which made me interested and aspired to be a urologist performing the robot-assisted operation in my future career.

Another operation I have observed more was nephrectomy, including partial and radical. Before resecting the tumor, finding the vessels is the most important thing during the operation. Carefully incising the fat and fascia around the kidney to find the arteries and veins, which took much time in the operation, then blocking or cutting off them. Tumor resection was also accompanied with ultrasonography. Although there were so many steps before, when the tumor was successfully removed, all the ahead work was worth and doctors showed a relaxed and cheerful expression. Even though I can’t participate in the operation, I also felt relaxed and happy.

Every day doctors need to perform operation except Monday morning and Wednesday. In a Monday morning, Doctor Honda took me to observe the imaging examination of the urinary system. She performing the examination on her own and showed patience for patients, which was different from China because doctors and technicians in China are independent of each other. In another Monday morning, Doctor Ogawa also took me to Minamisoma to see outpatients. That city was a little far from Fukushima city and we talked much on the road. On the way back to Fukushima, we went to enjoy the sea at Matsukawaura. The sea was beautiful and this the first time for me to see the Pacific Ocean (of course except for the Chinese ocean). To my sorrow, the right side of the road was ocean but the other side was a wide expanse of flat land brought by the earthquake 7 years ago.

In some mornings when I was not in a rush to the operation room, Doctor Matsuoka and Doctor Kurimura will take me to make the rounds of the wards. Matsuoka called it “car-sin” which was similar to the pronunciation of “happiness” in Chinese. I think Matsuoka and patients must feel happy after “car-sin”.

 

In the spare time in the hospital, doctors and administrators will have lunch or drink tea or coffee together. We also enjoyed fruits and snacks together and the room was full of laughter. There are two administrators in the office and both of them were nice. They taught me many things about life in Japan and the hospital. I really appreciate the help from them during this period.

 

After work, some doctors were still busy, such as Doctor Haga and Doctor Ogawa, with whom were also the doctors that I have more communication. After every tumor resection operation, Doctor Haga will collect some tissues from the tumor into his nitrogen canister to do some experiments. He loves doing medical research and writing papers to publish on the international journal, which makes me very impressed. He was always reading the papers on his spare time in the hospital and this hard work inspired me in the research in the future. In addition, Doctor Ogawa was different from him that he was busy caring the patients and management of the department. He told me that he went back from the hospital at 11:30 p.m. or later and had a five-hour sleep every day. I marveled at his hardworking and asked him whether he would like to take a relaxed job. He answered me that busy in a university hospital and the difficult operations were really enjoyed for him. I was really admired him and I might understand him when I was busy in the future.

As for the time not in the hospital, Doctor Ogawa would invite me to drink with many urologists in Japan. We enjoyed drinking and talking about everything in our life. Although I can’t understand the Japanese, Ogawa will patiently explain to me that what they are talking and why they are laughing. He was looking after me always and like my brother in Japan.

The five weeks passed quickly and I want to say “thank you” to everyone I have met in FMU hospital. I don’t know whether I have another chance to visit this wonderful hospital again in the future, but I think this nice experience will always in my memory forever.

He Weixiang
Department of Urology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Department of Urology, Fukushima Medical University of Medicine, Fukushima, Japan