Dear Editor,
Dr Launer has no need to feel envious of Japanese primary care colleagues. Although there are a few centres promoting primary care such as the one he visited, officially this speciality doesn’t even exist in Japan.
The majority of medical care in this country is provided at hospitals which has the disadvantage that the patient has to decide himself or herself which speciality to attend, and follow-up is normally also at the hospital.
While it’s true that there are many small clinics in residential areas in Japan, these offer only a limited range of services, for example: diabetes mellitus, gastroenterology, respiratory diseases, and paediatrics. Nowhere, as far as I am aware, at any one clinic will you find a full range of primary care services as in the UK.
I pointed out all this in a lecture [1] I gave in some years back, but little has changed.
Yours sincerely,
Gabriel Symonds
[1] Journal of General and Family Medicine 2016, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 125–131
Re: John Launer: Twilight and sunrise in primary care