2019 Volume 39 Issue 5 Pages 597-601
Japan, faced with a low birth rate and a super-aging society, must improve its social security sustainability. The medical community needs to assist in this effort by promoting various reforms based on professional autonomy, such as role-sharing between public and private hospitals, promotion of the use of primary care physicians（“kakaritsuke physicians”）, optimization of the national medical expenditure, and efforts to extend healthy life expectancy.
These efforts call for enhanced professional autonomy among anesthesiologists. The tax withheld on the referral fee for the so-called “anesthesiologist dispatch service” is one source of social security revenue. Various efforts by academic societies are underway to earn and ensure trust from the public and the medical community and to realize sustainable social security, but the key issue here is for anesthesiologists to develop more professional autonomy. Having self-discipline will be an essential requisite for anesthesiologists to improve their own social standing.
