Outlines and Problems of Maritime Medical Care

Abstract

International shipping is essential for people’s lives and national production in the oceanic state Japan. Compared to airplanes, ocean-going ships can navigate independently for a long period of time, but the speed of ships is much slower than airplanes. In Japan, maritime radio medical consultation service has been operated since 1970, and education and certification of health supervisors as a paramedic on the ocean-going ship are continuing since 1962. However medical resources on board are not yet sufficient. There exist many application fields of computer aided surgery in the maritime medical care. Outlines and problems of maritime medical care are presented in this paper.