Objective：We aimed to evaluate the feasibility of our rehabilitation program for abdominally based rehabilitation following autologous breast reconstruction, and investigate the changes in physical function and health-related quality of life in the early postoperative period.

Methods：Fifteen patients who underwent breast reconstruction between September 2020 and October 2021 were included in this prospective, observational case series.

The program composed of prehabilitation and postoperative home-based exercise until 12 weeks post-surgery. Adherence to home exercise program was surveyed using a self-reported workout check list. At postoperative 4th, 8th, 12th, and 24th weeks, a physio-/occupational therapist assessed the following objectives：i) Range of motion, muscle strength, and disability of upper extremity and trunk, ii) Quality of life using EQ-5D questionnaire, and iii) Patients' daily activities.

Results：No adverse events were observed, and all patients completed the program. Overall adherence to daily exercise was 71.1％．Physical function of the upper extremities recovered in 8th postoperative week；however, truncal function, quality of life, and daily activities in 12th postoperative week remained lower than those observed preoperatively. Nevertheless, the program appeared useful for many patients, although some reported difficulty in continuing the exercise after returning to work.

Conclusion：Rehabilitation programs directed by physio/occupational therapists may play a potentially advantageous role in facilitating a return to baseline function and quality of life during the early postoperative period.

Objective：Only 44 of the 82 university medical schools in Japan have rehabilitation medicine departments, although rehabilitation medicine is one of the 19 basic specialties recognized by the Japanese Medical Specialty Board, and many medical doctors are concerned regarding selecting rehabilitation medicine as a basic specialty without sufficient education in the field. The “Let's Become a Physiatrist” Seminar has been organized since 2017 to eliminate such concerns, and this study aimed to investigate how these results are manifested in the number of majors.

Methods：We examined the number of past attendees and tracked how many of them became rehabilitation medicine majors.

Results：The number of seminar attendees over a 5-year period was 589. The number of on-demand viewers in FY2020 and FY2021, which were held via the web, was 554. A total of 116 of the 471 physicians who began specialty training in rehabilitation medicine after the seminar was planned attended or web viewed the seminar accounting for 24.63％．This percentage has been increasing each year, with 36.81％ of the majors who applied in 2022 attending the seminar, and the number of multiple attendees also increased. The number of majors has increased significantly doubling to 144 in 2022 compared with 74 in 2018.

Conclusion：In many cases, the seminar helped the attendees learn more about physiatrists and develop their thoughts while attending multiple times. Thus, they started their majors. Five years have passed since we started planning this seminar, and we believe that the results are now coming to fruition.