OGAWA Hideoki, M.D., Ph.D.

Juntendo is Japan's oldest school of Western medicine. It was founded in 1838 as a school of Dutch medicine in Yagenbori, Edo (now Tokyo) by Taizen Sato.

At the end of the Edo period, partly because of the policy of excluding foreigners and Western studies, researchers of Dutch medicine gathered from all over the country at Juntendo, which had been moved from Edo to Shimousa-Sakura, Chiba. It thrived as a place for research and education of Western medicine. This place for the practice of clinical medicine blossomed, giving rise to the saying that “the forefront of medicine was born in the forests of Sakura.”

Takanaka Sato, the second head of Juntendo, moved from Sakura to Tokyo with his students at the request of the new Meiji government, and committed himself to establishing education in modern Western medicine as the first president of Daigaku Toko (the predecessor of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo). Susumu Sato, the third head of Juntendo, went to the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Berlin to study, obtaining the very first passport issued by the new Meiji government. After becoming the first official Asian graduate of a Western medical school, he became a leader in the introduction of German medical education.

Since then, Juntendo has produced medical researchers and practitioners who are excellent in both skills and spirit. It has opened pathways in the latest medical science, medical care, and health and sports science for training mind and body, thus developing into an international health-integrated university and graduate school.

Up to now, the principle of Juntendo, which has been maintained as tradition, has been “Continuous advancement.” This principle carries on the spirit of the faculty’s foundation, namely that research and educational activities can be actively enhanced in an environment of free competition. As a result, among the medical schools with long traditions, Juntendo has remained almost free from academic cliques and has established an academic culture where anyone can be appointed to a position regardless of previous schooling, as long as he or she is a person of excellence.

All those who gather at Juntendo understand and enjoy this academic culture where the sense of solidarity is cultivated based on self-improvement, the principle of free competition, and mutual trust. Thus, education and research based on a high sense of ethics are put into practice.

The philosophy which underlies all of these is characterized by the word “Jin.” “Jin” expresses the spirit that “I exist as you exist, with a heart that considers and cherishes others.” Juntendo's school emblem is designed after the Chinese character “jin,” which expresses the philosophy that all those who gather at Juntendo aim for.