Introduction, by Jack Kimball
In September 1997 I asked second-year students at Miyazaki Medical College, young doctors-in-training, to read materials related to the world population's well-being, that is, clinical and therapeutic data from developed and developing countries worldwide. These data were in reports issued by the United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO). I asked my students to imagine the significance of the WHO reports in their own terms. I suggested they write in response to the reports as follows: (a) identify at least two significant challenges and, more, (b) offer ways medical professionals from Japan and other developed countries might contribute to meeting these challenges.
In October, Professor Koju Fujieda of Fukui Medical School (Fukuiikadai) invited me to submit student work in consideration for Fukuiikadai's annual collection of essays by international learners of English. The work of the Miyazaki Medical College students whose names are asterisked (*), in the Index, appear in The Kuzuryu Memoirs 17, published by Fukuiikadai. I thank Professor Fujieda for generously extending this opportunity to students at Miyazaki Medical College.
Included here, then, is a sample of students' writings, both published and unpublished, that address world issues from the perspective of new entrants in the Japanese medical community as well as serious thinkers and writers in the English language. I hope you will enjoy them.
Index of Essays