Japanese doctors visit UNMC, discuss rural health shortages

Finding ways to increase the number of physicians in rural communities is not just unique to Nebraska.

Dr. Masatoshi Matsumoto and Dr. Kazuo Inoue recently came to UNMC to find better ways of increasing the number of family practice physicians in Japan’s rural communities as well.

Pictured from left: Patrik Johansson, Robert Bowman, M.D., a professor of family medicine at A.T. Still University in Arizona, Dr. Masatoshi Matsumoto, Dr. El-Mohandes and Dr. Kazuo Inoue.

They spent Feb. 23 talking to Ayman El-Mohandes, M.B.B.Ch., M.D., M.P.H., dean of the UNMC College of Public Health, and Patrik Johansson, M.D., director of the Rural Health Eudcation Network, about efforts to address the shortage of rural doctors in Nebraska.

Dr. Matsumoto is a lecturer in the division of community and family medicine at the center for community medicine at Jichi Medical University in Tochigi, Japan.

Dr. Inoue is an alumnus of Jichi Medical University and has practiced in rural Japan for 13 years. He also does research on rural health at the University of Tokyo’s Department of Public Health.