I was given the opportunity to attend the FPMHNP course of the master's program at the University of Southern Indiana, USA. The objective for this course is to nurture nurse practitioners who can provide medical services in the field of psychiatry. Nurse practitioners are the nurses who can provide treatments and care including giving diagnosis, treatments, and prescriptions in particular field. Although there are no nurses who play such roles in Japan, I took this course because I thought it would be helpful to pursue psychiatric nursing as my own special field. However, I was not able to participate in the clinical practice because I do not have the license for nursing in the US.
　　　All lectures were conducted online, so that people who live far from school were also able to take the lectures. We shared diagnostic criterion, guideline for treatments, and resent research outcomes with classmates for the assignments given every week, and then we discussed the assessments, diagnoses, approach to the treatments, and the reasons. In this process, it made me realize keenly about the importance of the disseminating and receiving information, but at the same time, I wondered if we have well developed sources of information that can be accessible by nurses in Japan.
　　　Particularly, I came to reaffirm how important it is to use the reliable literature reviews. The other side of the coin is that while being able to use these sites in the University of Tsukuba Library, I realized that I did not take advantage of using them when I was in the nursing sciences area. In the clinical setting with a limited time, I realized strongly again that the ability to gather effective information is absolutely essential.
　　　I felt that the differential was aroused from the faculty of the education in terms of Psychopharmacology. I attended the lectures of the school of nursing last year; they devoted their time to explain about the features of individual medicines in psychopharmacology. It is not that psychiatric nursing education in Japan is inadequate: there are relatively many new psychiatric medicines and something to do with sharing the roles of doctors and nurses in Japan. However, as being a nurse, it is also important to monitor the effects on the medications and treatments but also to understand psychopharmacology.
　　　Also, I was able to have insightｓ into how medical care should be in medical cares, welfare systems, and the cultural differences. In some areas, where the University of South Indiana is located, have corn fields and forests continued many kilometers and it takes long time to access to the fire departments, the police stations as well as the hospitals. In order for people to consult doctors, they need to make an appointment. They sometimes spend 3 to 4 hours to go to the hospital in a city, when they need to consult particular specialists. Therefore, nurse practitioners, who can provide treatments and prescriptions, are a great help to people in some regions. Especially, it is popular with those who want to cut down their medical expenses because the fee is cheaper compared with doctors' fee. This has a lot to do with medical insurance system. Although it is being considered to introduce NP into Japan, I strongly felt that it is important to introduce systems which are suited for Japan's present condition.
　　　Lastly, I was privileged to have an opportunity to conduct a comparative study between Japan and the United States. I would like to express my gratitude for giving this wonderful opportunity to gain insights into my own research subjects.

（Report on Studying Abroad Operation）

▲　PAGE TOP

▲　PAGE TOP