Abstract
There has been a major concern regarding the decreasing of medical doctor in the rural region in Japan.
Minamiuwa Prefectural Hospital (MPH), the only hospital providing emergency medical service in this area, is facing similar problem.
Ainan is a city of 25,000 residents, and 32.3% of them are over the age of 65. In 2002, 23 doctors were working in the MPH as full-time staffs, but the number has decreased to 10 at the year of 2011. The full-time orthopedic surgeon has decreased from 2 to 1. Thus, it is very important to reduce preventable fracture cases because of the limited medical resource.
As the only full-time orthopedist working in this region, I have launched a project named “version Minamiuwa”. This is a very simple exercise explained as follow : lift up her/his hip and hold for 3 seconds with her/his palm on the quadriceps muscle so that she/he can feel the contraction of muscle. The excise is to be repeated 50 times a day.
There are several goals we are trying to achieve through this project. First, we are aiming to promote understanding of the importance of locomotive organs. Second, we are trying to draw the attention of local residents to pay special awareness of the medical crisis we are facing in the rural in Japan : lacking of medical staffs.
