Hi there!

With the wholehearted support of the students across the globe, we successfully held the 10th session of Clinical Dojo with JABSOM on 3/27/2022 from 2-4 PM in Japan Standard Time.

“Clinical Dojo with JABSOM” is among the first volunteer-based regular program to stimulate international medical student exchange between the States and Japan. We continue the simple mission of sharing the learning opportunity that you can’t easily access. By discussing a clinical case as the JABSOM students do in their PBL class, we can refine our clinical reasoning skills and increase our awareness of cultural differences among us. The JABSOM PBL style is awesome in that it elucidates how to create a differential diagnosis while allowing us to synthesize and integrate so much medical knowledge that we study in our daily classes and having us gain a deeper understanding rather than merely studying for a test.

My name is Shunya Hishinuma, a final year medical student at Yokohama City University, Japan. I’m honored to take on the role of lead organizer of this program with a priceless collaboration among the students worldwide. This time was the 10th session out of the preplanned 11, and I was privileged to have more than 30 students join internationally.

Fortunately, this time, we expanded our precious collaboration over the West Coast through
great cooperation with this program by a medical student in California, Arisa Ueno. The
following is her warm comment on the last session:
My name is Arisa Ueno, and I am a first-year medical student at the California University of
Science and Medicine.
This past Saturday was my very first time attending the Clinical Dojo session. To my surprise,
students from many different schools and grades participated in this session. It was a great
opportunity for me to hear the different styles of learning from various institutions across the
globe and learn medicine from upper-level medical students.
The clinical case was a 16-year-old female with heart palpitations diagnosed with a panic attack.
It was a great review for me as I had finished the cardiology block and a great way to learn
psychology and endocrine as I have yet to study those systems. Initially, my goal was to learn
new Japanese medical terminology. However, I was pleasantly surprised to learn much more
beyond that.
In the last 30 minutes of the session, we discussed what to keep in mind when interacting with
this patient who was just diagnosed with a panic attack. I was able to see the difference and
similarities in medical students’ approaches from different countries. I felt like it was a great
way to become more culturally competent.
Overall, my experience at Clinical Dojo was a great opportunity for me to challenge my medical
knowledge and learn the different ways medicine is carried out in different cultures.

Thanks, Arisa!
As a host of this program, let me be honest to say It’s not easy for me at all to lead the session
so that everyone has a lesson they can take home. However, I appreciate those mentally
humbling experiences that I can get only beyond the scope of my daily classes and rotations.
Let me give a huge shout-out to Amanda, Dillon, Akimasa, and Hinako. Without you guys, this
program couldn’t be realized.
The next session is the final one throughout the year, which will be the culmination of the event
organizers’ dedication to this program from start to finish. Do you think the ship has already
sailed? Absolutely not! Come and join us to make the final session by far the greatest!
The application form for the FINAL session is located in the link below:
https://forms.gle/jnBcuQX3KJePFbPr6