SUITA, Osaka -- As the number of foreign nationals visiting and residing in Japan continues to grow, so does the need for medical institutions to be able to care for them, and Osaka University's unique "medical interpreter" program at its hospital here is gathering attention.

Describing things like medical conditions and treatment plans can be filled with specialized terminology that makes it difficult for even two Japanese people to discuss. When these conversations must take place with a foreign national who doesn't speak Japanese, the difficulty level is even higher.

During the 2013 academic year, Osaka University Hospital in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, opened up a special "Center for Global Health" to meet the needs of a growing number of patients of foreign nationalities. During the next academic year, there were only 46 patients that needed interpretation services, but that number sharply increased to 160 by academic 2016.

For medical interpretation, specialized explanations are required, but there was no system to certify medical interpreters. Therefore, many interpreters dispatched to the hospitals were either lacking in the proper knowledge or it was difficult to guarantee an interpreter depending on the language.

That's why Osaka University established a "medical interpretation training course" in April 2015 in English, Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese to bridge the gap between medical professionals and the foreign nationals in need of their care. For roughly one year, the students learn and are trained by Osaka University Faulty of Medicine associate professors and other instructors in the workings of the human body, diseases, medical ethics and more. Anyone aged 20 years or older with a certain degree of language skill can join the course for a cost of 290,000 yen. In the three years since its inception, the program has seen a total of 100 people complete the program.

One such graduate is 36-year-old Wen Jun from China, a member of the inaugural class, who went on to work at Osaka University Hospital after completing the course. Now he works as a medical interpreter at the hospital's Center for Global Health.

Wen came to Japan some 10 years ago after studying Japanese at a university in China. When he would go to the hospital feeling unwell, he was troubled as he was often unable to understand the complex medical jargon that the doctors and other staff members would use. It was when he started to feel the necessity for medical interpreters that he happened upon an ad for the Osaka University training program online and applied.

"Even if you are fluent in a language, it doesn't mean you can work as a medical interpreter," said Wen. "The medical knowledge that I gained through the program has been extremely useful. I would like to ease the apprehension of foreign patients as much as I can."

The lack of medical interpreters is a problem faced throughout Japan. In August 2017, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced the results of a survey of 3,761 hospitals, which found that of the 1,710 hospitals that responded, roughly 80 percent accepted foreign nationals as outpatients in fiscal 2015. At the same time, 55 percent of medical interpreter service dispatch operators in all 47 prefectures faced the issue of "securing medical interpreting staff."

According to Aichi Prefectural University associate professor of sociolinguistics Miki Itoigawa, there are only seven universities nationwide as of the 2016 academic year offering regular training courses in medical interpretation. Of them, only Osaka University and the Tokyo Akasaka Campus of the International University of Health and Welfare are connected to the schools' respective medical schools. Itoigawa says the unique characteristics of both schools is the teaching of students based on national training curriculum and focusing on imparting more specialized knowledge to the interpreters.

"We want to train personnel that can contribute to hospitals all over the country," said Osaka University Hospital Center for Global Health Director Ken Nakata. "To increase the quality of medical interpreting, it will be necessary to establish a national, unified certification system."

(Japanese original by Tomo Yamaguchi, Osaka City News Department)