This year, the Dermatological surgery team has four doctors. In addition to the team of Drs. Aoyagi, Hata, and Homma, Dr. Horie joined the department this year and started to work with the team. The team will treat tumors and perform surgery. We will invite ward and resident doctors to work with us on surgery, which will improve the level of surgical technique of the department as a whole.

Surgeries that requires general anesthesia are preformed on Mondays and those that require local anesthesia are preformed on Wednesdays and Fridays, in the Central Operating Room.

Full-fledged use of the newly established day surgery room started in April 2010. Surgeries performed there and elsewhere totaled 367 cases in 2010.

As the Hokkaido University Hospital is a regional core hospital, we need to perform complicated surgeries involving malignant tumors and other rare and difficult cases. The expectations of patients with such conditions are naturally high, so we carry out our duties with a strong sense of responsibility every day.

To further improve our team, I will work hard to achieve the following three basic education goals: 1) the maintenance or improvement of the high level of our operations, 2) the provision of highly specialized education for the Dermatological surgeons, and 3) the provision of basic education for the young department members.