Tohoku University's 'Open Door' Policy and Me

Since its days as Tohoku Imperial University, Tohoku University has upheld 'Open Door' as one of its core academic principles. It accepts anyone who possesses the necessary ability. A frequently cited symbol of this is the three women—Chika Kuroda, Ume Tange, and Raku Makita—who enrolled in the Faculty of Science at Tohoku Imperial University in 1913 (Taisho 2). They were, in fact, the first female university students in Japan. While we speak of the 'Taisho Modern' era, it was an 'unthinkable' phenomenon for women to advance to university at the time, and it is said that Tohoku University received an 'inquiry' from the Ministry of Education regarding this.

In fact, I am one of those who benefited from Tohoku University's 'Open Door' policy. This is because I am the first person since the founding of Tohoku University to be awarded a Doctor of Medicine degree for research in Kampo medicine.

I was awarded my Doctor of Medicine degree in 1997. At that time, there was no one else in Japan, at least at the former Imperial University level, who had obtained a degree (Doctor of Medicine) through research on Kampo medicine. I compiled data showing that the Kampo medicine Seihai-to suppresses inflammation and mortality in model mice with aspiration pneumonia into an English-language paper, and I used that as my foundational thesis to obtain my degree (Doctor of Medicine) at Tohoku University. Today, many people obtain degrees through Kampo research, but I am likely the first to have done so at the former Imperial University level.

The degree review process was quite contentious, but in the end, in light of Tohoku University's 'Open Door' policy and 'Research First' principle, it was determined that the thesis was sufficiently worthy of scientific research results, and I was granted the degree.

I understand it now, but while it was difficult for me as the first person to obtain a degree in Kampo research at an Imperial University-class institution, it must have been quite difficult for the university that recognized the degree as well. After all,

'There is no precedent.'

When there is no precedent, it takes courage for both the person doing it and the person approving it. If they recognized this as a Tohoku University Doctor of Medicine and a problem occurred later, wouldn't it be a disgrace to Tohoku University? I believe the university had such concerns.

Of course, my mentor, Professor Sasaki, had sent me to experts to thoroughly master the experimental methods and had those experts check my work repeatedly, so I approached the degree review having demonstrated that the data was clearly scientifically valid by the standards of the time. Therefore, Tohoku University had no reason to refuse it. However, if it had been a university where 'questionable' interference could occur, my degree might have been shelved for reasons unrelated to the accuracy of the theory or experiments. There are still plenty of universities like that today. But it means that when Tohoku University was still in the 20th century, it did not do that. The fact that they said there was no reason for Tohoku University to refuse it, provided the experiments were properly verified and the data was published in an English-language paper, is truly characteristic of the 'Open Door' Tohoku University.

Because I obtained my Tohoku University degree in that manner, I absolutely despise 'doctors famous in Tokyo media and on the internet' who, while doing nothing themselves, pay money to regional universities to charm professors and obtain suspicious degrees.

For example, Hideki Wada.