2023 Volume 63 Issue 2 Pages 120-123
I hoped to participate in the practice of psychosomatic medicine because I strongly felt psychosomatic medicine remained uncultivated in the wild land. For young men, psychosomatic medicine appeared to be an eligible entrance into the new unknown world. Soon after graduation, I enrolled for a course in psychosomatic medicine and learned how to treat patients with eating disorders from Dr. Ken Fukamachi. In my resident course at Kyushu University, I struggled to treat patients with psychosomatic diseases. At Nagato Memorial Hospital, psychosomatic diseases were treated in patients with severe silicosis. In postgraduate school, I majored in psychoneuroimmunology ; for the detection of subtle expression of brain cytokines under conditions of psychological stress, I developed a highly sensitive detection system using PCR. At the National Institutes of Health, I studied brain neurotransmitter function using molecular biological techniques. After I returned to Japan, I treated patients with focal dystonia using biofeedback systems, participated in the management of the ward and the organization of the psychosomatic division of Kyushu University Hospital, and experienced real issues in the practice of psychosomatic medicine. At Fukuoka Dental College, I pursue the treatment of psychosomatic patients in the local community and treat patients with oral psychosomatic diseases in collaboration with the dental sections. In this article, I review whether my original aim was realized or not considering over 30 years of trail.
