A day for Yasuka Kikuchi (Doctoral Program)

Hokkaido University is perfectly located in the center of Sapporo. From where Hokkaido University Hospital is situated on campus, we can see the skyline of highrise buildings around the north entrance of the Sapporo JR Station.
Every morning, I head straight to Hokkaido University Hospital and prepare for my work. After changing into a lab coat, my daily routine begins with a call from a nurse telling me about the examinations to start.

In the morning, I am engaged in studying radiograms as a diagnostic radiologist in the room assigned to study various images.
While examining CT and MRI scans, I write reports for use in the medical care of patients. I commonly diagnose about 10 to 20 cases each morning. Currently, I belong to the Body group, which is comprised of about 10 people including intern doctors.

Conferences are held once a week in the room where we study scans, which is attached to the CT facility. During the conferences, we discuss topics of educational interest and about cases where the diagnoses are difficult to establish. The discussions are conducted in question and answer style, and new queries and topics are taken up every week.

When I have completed my morning duties, it is time for a lunch break. I usually have lunch at the Medical School cafeteria. My favorites there are noodles, such as Ebi-ten-wakame-soba (noodles with shrimp tempura and seaweed) and Kama-age-soba noodles, specifically Udon. The cafeteria seats 120 and can be a little crowded at lunch time. Today, I had lunch with other staff from my lab. After lunch, I sometimes stop over at the medical office and take a break to look through the day’s newspaper.

Twice a week, my afternoon working hours are assigned to MRI examinations of the heart. It takes about 40 to 90 minutes per interpretation of a radiogram for these cases. I analyze the data scanned by radiological technologists, have them checked by my professor who is a specialist in the cardiac field, and then write reports.

I keep the later hours reserved for my own research. From the beginning, I have been interested in the field of cardiology (study of the heart). So, when I found that I could do research in cardiology through diagnostic imaging, I decided to apply to join the Department of Radiation Medicine. It is difficult to create images of the heart, and there is no other organ whose movements are as dynamic as that of the heart. This is why I feel such strong interest in this research. If I have an opportunity, I would like to study in the USA in the future, and become a physician who has a broader perspective than I have now.