Life for rural doctors: charms and challenges

Research fellow Wataru Sasaki, sees connections between rural Japan and rural Oregon 

For more than 20 years, ORPRN and OHSU Family Medicine have partnered with the Japan Association for Development of Community Medicine (JADACOM), where selected JADACOM faculty and providers participate in a two-year research fellowship. Fellows spend their two years in Oregon conducting research, attending conferences, and visiting rural clinics to expand their research knowledge. 

Wataru “Wata” Sasaki, M.D., is the current JADACOM fellow. He is a little more than halfway through his year-long fellowship, which started in October 2022.

Dr. Sasaki brings with him to Oregon more than decade of experience working as a rural healthcare provider at the Higashidori Clinic in Higashidori, Aomori in northeastern Japan. While practicing medicine in rural Higashidori (population 5,900), Dr. Sasaki provided numerous services, including outpatient and inpatient services, home visits and health promotion and education. 

Dr. Sasaki’s time in Higashidori showed him the charms and challenges that can only be experienced in rural practice in Japan.  It was this experience that led Dr. Sasaki to look closer at the realities of physicians working in rural Japan and try to understand the reasons that physician burnout is so prevalent in these areas. 

Since the fall of 2022, Dr. Sasaki has been designing a study to be implemented simultaneously in Japan and Oregon that strives to understand the factors, both in their work and personal lives, that impact provider satisfaction in rural areas. 

Dr. Sasaki recently visited Cascades East Family Medicine in Klamath Falls and Winding Waters Clinic in Enterprise, where he spent time in the clinics learning about rural medicine in Oregon and getting to know the providers who work in these areas.