The Department of Anesthesiology performs three major tasks.

• Anesthesia and general care for patients during surgery.
• "Intensive care": General care and emergency treatment to severe patients in ICU (intensive care unit) and emergency outpatients.
• "Pain Clinic": Providing treatment dealing with pain

Anesthesia

The role of anesthesia is to facilitate successful surgical procedures by protecting the patient from the shock or stress caused by surgical incision. We believe that an anesthesiologist's mission is to get patients back to everyday life as soon as possible, and relieve post-operative pain. In order to ensure that each patient receives the best treatment as safely and quickly as possible, we thoroughly assess each patient’s medical state prior to surgery, provide systemic management during surgery, and offer postoperative pain management.

In total, there are six members in this department, five anesthesiologists (one consultation doctor, two specialists and two certified doctors) and one medical intern, who together provide anesthesia services to the hospital. Fukuyama Medical Center also serves as an "initial (post graduate) clinical training" facility, with new graduate doctors taking two months of anesthesiology training during their year-long training period. These anesthesiology training sessions provide more than just experience in the operating room, and also provide sufficient experience in all of our three main areas of work: exercising anesthesia, intensive care and emergency training. This intensive two-month program provides staff with the clinical ability to make accurate judgment on a patient’s condition, and to perform appropriate treatment in an emergency. Working under anesthesiology experts and academic doctors, young interns strive towards the goal of "one hundred cases of tracheal intubation training" during the two-month training period. On top of this, since October 2006, we have also accepted one emergency medical technician as a trachea intubation trainee every year, who performs thirty practical tracheal intubation procedures over a two-month period.

Intensive Care

‘Intensive Care’ deals with ‘invasion’ and ‘stress’ in patients, whether surgical, or caused by any manner of illness. When a patient is threatened by severe symptoms due to the stress of illness, Intensive Care anesthesiologists utilize specialized knowledge and techniques to restore these patients to a normal state. And, in the most extreme case where a patient’s breathing or heart has stopped, Intensive Care performs resuscitation to save their lives. Restoring these patients from the very brink of death to normal health is a true testament to the skill and experience of Intensive Care anesthesiologists.

Pain Clinic

‘Pain Clinic’ is a specialized science has developed in the field of pain management. This advanced pain management is more than simply blocking nerves with anesthetics or narcotics, or prescribing painkillers. Rather, it is evolving into a holistic treatment conducted in cooperation with experts of fields such as orthopedics, psychiatry, and psychosomatic medicine. Fukuyama Medical Center is a very busy surgical hospital, with about 3600 surgical operations held every year. Because of time constraints, the Pain Clinic does not have the resources to accept outpatients, and provides individual treatment for inpatients referred to the Anesthesiology Department from other departments. Fortunately, doctors from the same university have opened a specialized pain clinic hospital nearby, so when patients approach us primarily for pain issues, we refer them to our specialist colleagues for treatment. On the other hand, when patients at the specialized pain clinic hospital require further orthopedic treatment or surgery, we reciprocally accept their introductions and provide appropriate treatment.