Cross-cultural communication （１）　

１）Introduction.
　As you will see from various other articles on this website, I have worked in the USA, Saudi Arabia and France, countries whose cultures are different from Japan. In Japan, I have also continued to work with foreigners, mainly Westerners. Based on these experiences, I have decided to introduce to you my own version of ‘cross-cultural communication’.

　After graduating from Osaka Medical College in 1977, I completed my training in internal medicine at Osaka Medical College, and from 1980 I spent three years as a resident at a hospital in the USA. The episodes from this time are described in considerable detail in ‘Brooklyn Memoir’, so I won't go into them this time.
　I returned to Japan in 1983 and started working at Osaka National Hospital. At that time, Osaka National Hospital had many veteran doctors, while I, at 32, was a complete youngster and was in a great deal of hurry because I was not sure of my role. I was running around the hospital day after day, searching for something that only I could do.

　During this exploration of the hospital, I became friends with the staff at the general information desk and started to gain a lot of information. Osaka National is connected to the subway Tanimachi 4-chome station by a direct connection, and because of its extremely convenient location, there were quite a few foreign visitors to the hospital from that time onwards. The question of which doctor to allocate these foreign patients to at the general information desk became a serious problem. In fact, none of the doctors wanted to see foreign patients. First of all, they are not good at foreign languages (mainly English). Also, even if they could speak some English, it would take three times longer to examine a patient than with a Japanese patient. The general information ladies were inundated with complaints from doctors who were asked to examine foreign patients. So I said to them. “From now on, when a foreigner who cannot speak Japanese comes to the hospital, don't hesitate to contact Kido in the department of internal medicine.” They could not have been less pleased. This was the start of my cross-cultural outpatient clinic at the Osaka National Hospital.

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