Dean’s Message

Dean’s Message

The environment surrounding medical care in Japan is changing due to a rapid change in its population structure with accelerated aging and a declining birthrate, advances in medical technology, and changes in people's awareness of medical care. As people's health, medical and long-term care needs increase and become more diverse and complex, the role of nurses is becoming increasingly important.
Nursing is concerned with all aspects of human life—birth, aging, illness, and death—and looks at the “human being,” the target of nursing care, holistically as a being who is living their precious life in their family and community, regardless of their health status, developmental stage, or living situation. The essence of the nursing profession is looking at "human beings" not only from the perspective of "medical care" but also from the perspective of "daily life." We "human beings" are living creatures, beings with feelings, and beings living in society. In nursing, when considering the "health" of such human beings, instead of dividing it into two: a "state of disease" and a "healthy state," we interpret "health" as a continuous and constantly changing phenomenon. Nursing is said to be both an art and a science of practice. Practicing nursing requires rich humanity and a scientific eye. By using their specialized knowledge and skills, nursing professionals build a relationship of trust with the target person and provide optimal care to promote, maintain or recover health, and sometimes to support a peaceful death, while paying attention to various factors including the person's background and living environment.
Osaka Metropolitan University School of Nursing aims to develop nursing professionals who can look at human beings from multiple angles and solve health problems based on scientific knowledge and skills, while sharing their pain and suffering. Also, the School provides various courses that approach nursing from a broad social perspective, including palliative care, international nursing, and disaster nursing. The Graduate School of Nursing aims to foster professionals equipped with the ability to adapt to advanced medical care and the ability to make a proper judgment in a community nursing setting, and who can practice nursing in close collaboration with other professionals. Many of our teachers have rich practical experience, and their research themes range widely. With both master's and doctoral programs, we provide an optimal learning environment for students to build practical knowledge of nursing.
By leveraging the synergistic effects of combining the strengths of the two universities, the School of Nursing and the Graduate School of Nursing will continue to evolve in order to achieve further development in education, research, and social contribution. Those who are interested in health, those who like relating to people, and those who wish to work in and contribute to the field of health and medical care—let’s take on the challenge together to create new knowledge of nursing.