Interview with Kenji Okami on his appointment as Dean of Tokai University School of Medicine: 50th anniversary of its founding and beyond

Tokai University School of Medicine and Tokai University Hospital celebrated their 50th anniversary during the last fiscal year, and in fiscal 2025, they have embarked on a new beginning toward the next 50 years. Aiming to become a world-class medical education and research hub, Tokai University raises the banner of a pioneering medical school. The Science News spoke with Kenji Okami (Vice President, Professor in the Field of Otolaryngology & Head and Neck Surgery), who was newly appointed as Dean of the School of Medicine this academic year, about school's future operations.

United with passion

—— First, please tell us about your aspirations upon taking office.

This is a heavy responsibility, taking over from my predecessor Professor Masaki Mori, but I believe my mission is to inherit and develop his initiatives, unite the School of Medicine as one team, ensure everyone moves toward the same goals, and enable Tokai University to progress in an even better direction. I want to dedicate my efforts to this.

—— In your management policy for the School of Medicine, you place student education first. Could you tell us about the background of this priority?

Since this is a medical school, there are important issues such as hospital management, but I want to make student education the highest priority so that our students can maintain the currently high pass rates for both the National Medical Examination and the National Nursing Examination.

We have been implementing national examination support plans for lower-performing students to improve the overall pass rate, and I think it's important to continue such efforts going forward. Also, since there are differences in enthusiasm for education among faculty members, I am asking them to approach student education with "passion" and work together in unity.

Unique to Tokai University

—— In your management policy, you also set high-quality medicine as a goal. Please tell us about specific initiatives.

Among the medical school projects established by my predecessor Dean Mori, there are things that only Tokai University can do. Rather than being "one of many," we aim to conduct research and medical care that are unique to Tokai University School of Medicine as "the only one."

For example, our university is famous for being strong in sports such as judo, track and field, baseball, and rugby. In the context of sports medicine we are advancing, the strengths of our sports clubs are connected with medicine to research sports, or the medical school supports the clubs so that they can achieve good results in sports. The Department of Orthopedic Surgery takes the lead in initiatives such as blood tests for long-distance relay runners and support for female athletes.

Also, our university's "Program for the Development of International Leaders in Advanced Medical Care Focusing on Sports Medicine and Athletic Devices" has been selected for the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's "Advanced Medical Human Resources Development Hub Formation Project," and we are working on training sports doctors.

When we ask students entering the medical school, quite a few aim to become sports doctors, which I think is also unique to Tokai University. Since sports medicine is a major characteristic of our university, we want to promote it as a unique initiative of our institution.

Furthermore, we want to focus on disaster medicine initiatives that leverage the strengths of being a comprehensive university. The Shonan region where our university is located experiences natural disasters, such as earthquakes as well as typhoons and torrential rains that trigger floods and mudslides. As we are a university with a medical school and affiliated hospital, emergency medical care during disasters is also an important mission.

Additionally, responses to pandemics like COVID-19 also fall under the scope of disaster medicine. We want to advance not only medical school initiatives but also collaboration with the School of Engineering for nighttime searches and rescue of disaster victims and faster lifesaving, as well as building response systems for pandemics.

Our university owns the marine research and training vessel Bosei-maru and also has emergency vehicles and helicopters for transporting doctors. Since we have a system that can provide emergency medical support by land, sea, and air, we want to develop this as a unique initiative of our university.

Vision for AI Specialty Department

—— Dr. Okami, your specialty is head and neck surgery. Could you explain a bit about initiatives in this field?

The head and neck region refers to the area from the clavicle to the skull, excluding the spine and eyeballs. It's a surgical department that deals with organs essential for daily life, such as taste, smell, and hearing (excluding vision), as well as speaking, swallowing, and breathing.

The important thing is to provide treatment while maintaining and preserving those functions (for example, speech). The greatest challenge is QOS (Quality of Survival for survivors of cancer)—how to maintain patients' QOL (Quality of Life).

Specifically, we engage in treatment and research while considering what method would be best for the patient's prognosis among options such as minimally invasive robotic surgery, radiation, and anticancer drugs.

—— AI (Artificial Intelligence) is now being introduced in various fields. How do you view this AI development?

AI is useful for determining treatment policies and image diagnosis, and I expect its introduction will advance further. I don't think we'll soon reach an era where AI performs surgery in place of humans in the field of surgery in which we are engaged.

However, since robotic surgery is already advancing, an era may come where skilled doctors' surgical techniques are copied and applied to next-generation surgery. For example, assuming the existence of remote surgery, an era may come where AI can perform almost the same surgical techniques even when the surgeon is not physically present.

At our university, to prepare for the arrival of such an era, there is talk of establishing an "AI Specialty Department" within the medical school. I think this could be realized within one to two years.

The Symbolic Hakone Ekiden

—— Earlier, you mentioned "one team." To wrap up, could you share your thoughts on this concept?

In modern medicine, "team medical care" is important. It's very important for doctors, nurses, medical technicians such as radiologists, pharmacists, administrative staff, and social workers to form teams and work together to handle patient treatment.

An analogy I often use: our university achieved its first overall victory in the 2019 Hakone Ekiden. At that time, while some universities won multiple section prizes, our university only won one section prize, so the individual performances were not particularly outstanding.

However, there were no sections ranked 10th or below—there were no "breaks" or "gaps." In other words, we were able to win through comprehensive team strength. I want our university's medical school to also work hard with "comprehensive team strength without gaps."

—— Thank you very much. We look forward to watching the future developments of Tokai University School of Medicine.