University of Iowa, Yoshihiro Tomizawa (6th Year, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy *at the time)

Hello to everyone reading this article. My name is Yoshihiro Tomizawa, and I studied abroad at the University of Iowa in the United States for the 2019 Overseas Advanced Clerkship. I would like to talk about the features of this program and what I learned from completing it.

As introduced on the website and elsewhere, a key feature of the Overseas Advanced Clerkship is that it is a participatory, hands-on clerkship rather than an observational one. At the training hospital, I joined the healthcare team alongside local pharmacy students, gathering information from medical charts and communicating with patients, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals. The clinical clerkship with local students and healthcare professionals was very stimulating and a great learning experience. Additionally, before traveling to the clerkship site, the program provides an opportunity to invite preceptors from the host institution to Japan for several weeks of lectures. This allowed me to learn about overseas guidelines and healthcare systems in advance and to communicate with the preceptors who would be supervising me. For someone like me with no prior experience abroad, this was a significant advantage.

I learned many things during the Overseas Advanced Clerkship, but the most significant was gaining an international perspective. As you may know, the healthcare systems in Japan and the United States differ in several ways (for example, the existence of medical professions not found in Japan, such as Pharmacy Technicians and Physician Assistants, and vaccinations administered by pharmacists). By learning about the current situation and ways of thinking in another country, I feel my own perspective has broadened. I gained a deeper understanding of the different backgrounds behind these systems, their impact on stakeholders like patients, their families, and healthcare professionals, and what Japan can learn to achieve ideal healthcare delivery. Since the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries are by no means confined to Japan, this international perspective has been particularly useful in my work.

Finally, a message for those who are interested in this program or are hesitant to apply. I believe this program is one of the most advanced among any Faculty of Pharmacy in Japan, and the one-month experience here will be invaluable. However, I think the first concern for many Japanese people when they hear 'studying abroad' is the language barrier (I was the same). Especially in medical settings, there is both professional communication with healthcare professionals and casual communication with patients, and many may be intimidated by the thought of doing this in English when they are not even confident in Japanese. But did you know that pharmacy students already have an advantage in overseas clinical clerkships? That is, drug names (generic names) are universal. In both Japanese and English, the antihypertensive drug amlodipine is Amlodipine, and the dyslipidemia drug rosuvastatin is Rosuvastatin. Of course, there are some exceptions, but almost all the drugs I saw in the medical charts at the host hospital had the same names as in Japan. This is a privilege for pharmacy students who have extensive knowledge of drug names, and I believe it nearly solves the language problem.

At Keio University, many people are there to support you, including faculty and staff in charge of international affairs and senior students who have participated in the Overseas Advanced Clerkship. As you consider participating, I encourage you to gather information from various people and make a choice you are satisfied with. As one of the Keio University alumni, I am cheering for you.