The road to an FACP – Why do we aim for it? –
（Health and Public Policy Committee (HPPC) project）
Kichijoji Asahi Hospital, Internal Medicine
Yuhta Oyama, MD, FJSIM, FACP
On the second day of ACP Japan Branch Annual Meeting 2019, the afternoon of June 9, we held a session with the above title as a project of HPPC. There are 337 FACPs, 6 MACPs and 1 Honorary Fellow as of December 18, 2018 in the ACP Japan branch. By listening to the reason why they aimed at Fellow, how they changed their daily work by becoming Fellow, and how they would like to act as Fellow in the future, we hope more member aim to FACP.
We had conducted a similar session at the annual meeting last year, and in this project, we also conducted a preliminary questionnaire on acp-exchange etc. We ask FACP and MACP about the process of becoming FACP/MACP and the change after that, etc., we ask Members about the image of FACP and whether or not they are aiming, and how they think they would change by becoming a FACP.
In the session, after explaining the purpose first, we presented the results of the preliminary questionnaire. Based on the results, valuable comments were received from Dr. Kenji Maeda, the current Governor of the Japan Chapter, Dr. Fumiaki Ueno, the former Governor of the Japan Chapter, and Dr. Noriko Yamamoto, chair of the Women’s Committee. As a result, a more meaningful message was delivered to everyone who participated, as well as to HPPC members. We would like to deeply thanks to the three commentators for taking part in this session despite the busy period. There are various motives when becoming a Member or Fellow, but being a Fellow gives them a mental motivation such as pride, confidence, and a sense of responsibility that seems important to continue the profession of a doctor.
After that, participants, commentators, and HPPC members joined to form three small groups, and group discussion were conducted along the theme. Participants exchanged their opinions easily, and active conversations were held in all groups. Finally, we made a summary and ended this session.
Members who participated in the session could hear the story from Fellow in the group discussion, so they would have thought of becoming a Fellow. Thank you very much for all the participants who have been listening diligently. It is hoped that more people aim for Fellow with this project as opportunity, but eventually it is the hope of us that ACP Japan chapter members will be more by repeated such projects.