“Mutually beneficial” Atrium exchange program with Japanese hospital reaches 20th anniversary

For the past 20 years, Atrium Health Navicent has partnered with the Japanese city of Kurobe to exchange faculty and residents along with culture and knowledge.

Every fall, medical residents from Kurobe City Hospital travel to Atrium to observe professionals perform medical care and get a “snapshot” of different medical specialties, said Patrice Walker, Atrium’s chief medical officer.

Officials at Kurobe City Hospital wanted to give their residents experience in the United States. The exchange program began in 2003 as a way to recruit residents to set their program apart.

“It’s not meant to be a one-way sort of thing that only the Kurobe residents get something out of,” Walker said. “Our learners, our medical students and faculty also get exposed to learners from another country and I think that’s meaningful for us as well.”

Kurobe, a city of roughly 40,000 on the central-northern coast of Japan, is Macon’s sister city. The Japanese company YKK established a factory in Macon — which celebrated its 50th anniversary last week — paving the way for a larger partnership with Macon.

Atrium Health Navicent sends two physicians and two nurses to Kurobe, while about eight residents visit from Japan.

Walker said the program not only gives its staff valuable experience, but it also helps inform the institution as a whole on wider phenomena, like what happened with COVID-19.

The exchange program continued virtually during the pandemic, and both hospitals were able to focus on treating COVID-19 and understand something that was happening internationally.

“It’s something that people want to know or understand, ‘what do I have to do, how am I able to go,’” she said. “That is something where the excitement has grown over the years.”

Beyond just the physical transfer of people, Walker said a significant part of the program is the transferring of ideas and culture. 

Walker, in her own time in Japan, noted the difference in mindsets and how that indirectly affects the role of doctors and healthcare in their society.

“The exposure to another culture helps to inform and influence the way that we ultimately provide care to a patient that may be different from us, and that’s okay,” she said.