Wrapping Things Up...

Now don't get excited, Mom, I'll be in Japan for a bit longer. What I mean is I'm wrapping up my rotations at Kameda. I have spent my first month here shadowing different departments, viewing surgeries, spending time with nurses, physicians, department heads, support staff, and of course, my preceptor John Wocher.

I had the most meaningful encounter yet yesterday while researching for one of my projects and shadowing a palliative care physician, Sekine-sensei. Palliative care is in it's infancy in Japan. Sekine-sensei was trained in the US and brought what he learned back to Japan. He believes patient suffering can come in a variety of forms and needs to be treated in the same form any other wound would be treated. While many Japanese hospitals are beginning to assign physicians to take charge of palliative care, they are not specialists in the field. Kameda is one of the only hospitals (if not the only) in Japan that has a designated palliative care department. 

When we went to see the second patient of the day, I recognized her as the woman who always says 'Good Morning' to me on my walk to the office in K-Tower. What you need to understand is I consider it a treat to have someone unexpectedly speak English, specifically when I'm ready to hear and respond with 'Ohayo Goseimuss'. I sat down and spoke with her for about an hour while Sekine-sensei continued on his rounds. She is a cancer inpatient and about seventy years old. She decided to start learning English about six years ago when she felt she needed more stimulation (to that my response was 'I tried Japanese and it was much too stimulating...'). For the six months before she learned about her illness she was teaching English to students and providing home stays for Americans, Canadians, and Australians. On 11 March, 2011 she lost her home, many of her friends and family, and all of her posiessions in the tsunami in Myagi Prefecture. Onozawa-sensei, a home healthcare physician, was providing relief in her prefecture and, as she put it, rescued her and brought her to Kameda. She is here with the clothes on her back, homeless, but smiled brightly through our entire conversation. 

Sekine-sensei was glad I came along that day and planned to take me to see her, knowing that she would want to talk with me. He said it is so rare to see a smile like that on a patient in her situation. His specialty would be very difficult to deal with but can ease patients' pain in so many different ways. I'm glad he took me along and I plan on returning to see her more often.