Toward celebrating the centenary of the JES

It was a special privilege and pleasure for me to serve as the President of the Japan Endocrine Society (JES) from 2019–2021. In May 2019, Japan rang in a new imperial era. On the homepage of the JES, I greeted the beginning of that era with the following message:

In April 2019, the new organization of the JES just started, and the following month, the imperial era of Japan changed from Heisei to Reiwa. “Reiwa” means “beautiful harmony” or “beautiful Japan.” Right at the beginning of this new era, I, together with all our members, would like to contribute to the development and innovation of our Society as we look forward to the centennial anniversary of the founding of the JES, which is eight years from now. Specifically, as the President I would like to propose the following five goals to promote our Society:

1. To cultivate the leaders of the next generation;

2. To promote and activate endocrine research;

3. To make progress in the internationalization of the Society;

4. To expand clinical endocrine practice all over Japan;

5. To deepen the relation with endocrine surgeons and pathologists.

Through these measures, I hope that we can achieve substantial development of our Society, country, and world.

Regarding the cultivation of the leaders of the next generation, I appointed younger leaders to the Managing Directorships and asked senior leaders to support them as Deputy Managing Directors. Indeed, all these younger leaders have also continued to administer the JES Board of Directors in the present term. The training of future endocrinologists is critical to expand clinical endocrine practice all over Japan. During my term, we strove to reform the framework for the training system of the subspecialties under the new medical specialist system in Japan. In the process, the new category of “Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Diabetes Specialist” was proposed by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Standards. Since this category is believed to be crucial for the future of the JES, we made great efforts to establish this framework, discussing it in detail with the Japanese Medical Specialty Board, the Japanese Society of Internal Medicine, and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Standards. Now, this framework is steadily being developed in cooperation with the Japan Diabetes Society. I believe that this new subspecialist system will lead to the substantial progress and growth of the JES.

In April 2017, I served as the chairman of the 90^th Annual Congress of JES in Kyoto under the theme of “Progress and Innovation in Endocrinology.” This was one of the landmark events for celebrating the 90^th anniversary of the JES. At that time I noticed that there was no English information on our website or on the posters in any previous annual meetings and moved quickly to have this remedied. Without such information, it would have been impossible for researchers abroad to access these meetings. To promote and activate the internationalization of the JES, I proceeded to create the English version of website of the 90^th Annual Congress of JES and added English information to the poster (Fig. 1) for the first time. I also set up a new session for international exchange with several Asian endocrine societies. These new plans have been extensively carried forward by the chairmen of our subsequent JES meetings.

Fig. 1

The poster of the 90^th Annual Congress of JES held in Kyoto in April 2017.

Finally, I look forward to celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the JES in the near future. I believe that this anniversary is another new start toward the next brilliant centenary of the JES.

Biographies

Takashi Akamizu

23^rd President

President, Kuma Hospital

Professor Emeritus, Wakayama Medical University

E-mail: [e-mail]

Careers in JES

2021– Senior Councilor

2019–2021 23^rd President

2017–2020 President for Kinki Regional Branch

2015–2019 Vice President

2013–2015 Director (Public Relations and Collaboration)

2011–2013 Director (Education and Career Development)

1993– Councilor

1982– Member

Activities in JES

2017 Chair, 90^th Annual Congress of JES

JES Awards

2015 14^th JES Award

1996 16^th JES Research Award

Contributions to EJ

2009–2012 Editor