Thank you for visiting our website.  I am Prof. Shinji Shimada, Professor of Department of Dermatology, University of Yamanashi and Director of University Yamanashi Hospital.

We welcome new doctors like you who aim to become a highly established medical specialist in both clinical and research fields of dermatology.  We see patients with various skin conditions of all ages.  The attraction of dermatology in clinic is that dermatologists see entire process from diagnosis to treatment of patients.  Diagnosis of many skin diseases requires pathological evaluation of biopsied skin lesions.  This is done by ourselves and we, in this regard, serve as dermatopathologists.  Many skin diseases can be cured by systemic and topical medications.  We also do surgical treatment for patients with injury, burn, severe infections, as well as skin tumors such as melanoma.  Thus, in order to provide best treatments for patients, you will need to acquire plenty of knowledge and skills in both medications and surgery.  Some skin lesions occur in relation to internal disorders.  You will thus be demanded to have not only knowledge about dermatology but also about diseases of many other specialties, i.e. internal medicine, rheumatology, and pediatrics.

It sounds like that it is not easy to become a qualified dermatologist.  We will instruct you to obtain the knowledge and skills to achieve this challenging goal in an attractive and efficient manner.  Indeed, the resident dermatologists in our department have passed the dermatological board examinations with the pass rate of 100% in five or six years.

I believe that physicians in an academic institution have at least three essential missions.  Two of them, as I mentioned earlier, are to provide best treatment to patients suffering from diseases and to educate young doctors.   The last is to contribute to advances in medicine that will develop better care for patients.  Using the latest techniques from the fields of immunology and molecular biology, our department has been providing breakthrough achievements to the world leading to better understanding of the pathogenesis of and new treatments for skin diseases.  Our research fields include 1) development for new tumor immunotherapy (directed by Dr. Naotaka Shibagaki, associate professor), 2) mechanisms of initial infection of HIV and 3) understanding the role of dendritic cells in allergic disorders (both directed by Dr. Tatsuyoshi Kawamura, lecturer), and 4) development of new immunotherapies for melanoma (directed by Dr. Takashi Inozume, lecturer).  You can visit our research introduction pages for your interest.

Despite all progress, there remain skin diseases that are difficult to cure and further research advances are required for them, i.e. atopic dermatitis, psoriasis vulgaris, and metastatic melanoma.  Again, it is a challenging mission to become an exceptional dermatologist who provides best practice to patients while contributing medical progress via conducting breakthrough researches.  I, as a professor of Department of Dermatology, University of Yamanashi, have been trying to make efforts to provide the best opportunity to train outstanding dermatologists by sustaining the excellence of the staffs, educational programs, and research environments of our department.  I hope you will proudly join us and have training with us to become a world-class dermatologist.  Let’s enjoy learning scientific and clinical dermatology!