SICOT e-Newsletter
Issue No. 19 - April 2010
Editorial by Prof Katsuji Shimizu - SICOT National Delegate of Japan
Japan as the 2010 SICOT Friendship Nation
It is a great honour that Japan has been nominated as the 2010 SICOT Friendship Nation. The geographical distance between Sweden and Japan is not short but the two countries have a constitutional monarchy in common. The Japanese orthopaedic society has had a lot of influence from the Swedish orthopaedic society for a long time. On this occasion, the recent history of Swedish influence on orthopaedic surgery in Japan is being reviewed. It was not until the end of World War II that Swedish orthopaedics was introduced to our country. In 1950, Professor Shotaro Mizuno, of the Osaka City University, visited Stockholm as a member of the inspecting party of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of the Japanese Government. Before this visit, Swedish orthopaedics was only known through articles on congenital dislocation of the hip (CDH, or DDH: developmental dysplasia of the hip), because this condition had a high incidence among Japanese infants at this time. The CE angle of Gunnar Wiberg (1939) and the Severin classification (1941) were well accepted and used practically in our orthopaedic society. After this, Japanese orthopaedic surgeons were successful in preventing CDH using our own method. Our society is grateful to the Swedish society for having contributed towards the prevention of CDH.
My mentor, Professor Takao Yamamuro of Kyoto University, was the first Japanese orthopaedic surgeon to have stayed for a long time at a Swedish university to study*. In 1961, Yamamuro was supported by the Swedish Government Scholarship and stayed in Sweden for one year. During his stay, Yamamuro was directed by Professor Wiberg, of the CE angle, as he was the Chairman of the Orthopaedic Department of Lund University. After Lund, Yamamuro moved to Malmö and studied with Professor Sohpus von Rosen, who had first recommended Yamamuro to come to Sweden. In Malmö, Yamamuro met Professor Göran Bauer who was famous for isotope bone scans for monitoring tumours and Yamamuro became stimulated to study in this field later on. After Yamamuro's visit, many Japanese orthopaedic surgeons visited Sweden for both short and long periods. Dr Erik Moberg of Hand Surgery and Dr Alf L. Nachemson of Spine Surgery were two distinguished orthopaedic surgeons who fostered many Japanese orthopaedic surgeons in Gothenburg.
In response to the present nomination of Friendship Nation, the Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) is preparing special presentations to introduce our recent progress, at the Seventh SICOT/SIROT Annual International Conference, a combined meeting with the Swedish Orthopaedic Association (SOF). These include a plenary lecture by Professor Shin-ichi Kikuchi and two symposiums on spine and arthroplasty by active Japanese orthopaedic surgeons.
I hope these events will facilitate a reunion of the long friendship between Japan and Sweden.
*Takao Yamamuro: personal communication