The Overseas Exchange Center (OVEX) was established in April 2015, as one of three centers in the International Medical Department (iMed) in Kyushu University Hospital. It aims to accelerate international academic exchanges between our hospital and hospitals abroad.

Fifty years ago, when I was a child, it took over 12 hours to travel from my city to Tokyo by conventional express train. Now it is easy to make one-day business trips to Tokyo. This has been a big and surprising change during the last 50 years. In the same 12 hours, we can fly from Japan all the way to the US or to Europe, and I feel that the earth truly is getting smaller and smaller. When you are asked if you can make a one-day business trip to the US or Europe, you may well say “no way!” I read an article the other day, however, that predicted that it would soon take only 30 minutes to fly from London to New York, using a new type of aircraft with a rocket engine, rather than a jet engine.

The 1970s was the decade of mass travel, with the birth of big commercial airplanes, and is sometimes called Internationalization Age 1.0. The current age, with its growth of Internet communications, is called Internationalization Age 2.0, because we can access all kinds of information from all over the world instantly, without spending much money. Fifty years ago, communities were regional. Now the whole of Japan is one society, thanks to the highly developed transportation system. We can even talk to each other right round the globe, just as if we were face-to-face, using smartphones. It seems very likely that we will come to consider the whole world one community within the next 50 years.

OVEX will work for medical providers visiting from abroad, to maximize their stay in Kyushu University Hospital. It will help those who visit abroad to experience a variety of different cultures, and will provide our hospital with an internationalized atmosphere to support everyone to become more international in their outlook.

DirectorShuji Shimizu, MD. PhD