Abstract
Japanese law governs the titles given to outpatient clinics. For example, neurology is called shinkei-ka (or shinkei-naika ) , and psychiatry is called seishin-ka in Japanese. Seishin-shinkei-ka and shinkei-seishinka are not allowed to be used as an officially approved clinical title, although both terms are allowed to be used on signs displayed inside the clinic. This is also true for shinshin-igaku-ka or shinshin-iryo-ka (psychosomatic medicine) and shinryo-shika or kouku-shinryo-ka (psychosomatic dentistry) as a title of inpatient clinic. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the use of ICD-10 for classification of diseases since 1990. Furthermore, ICD-NA is used in neurology, ICD-DA is used in dentistry, and DSMIV is used in psychiatry. It is necessary to understand classification of diseases and outpatient clinics for each hospitals to keep going well one another and to perform high quality medicine. It is hoped that the psychosomatic/holistic medicine becomes common in all fields of clinical medicine based on a bio-psychosocial-ethical approach!
