Notes from the President

I know this is out of the blue but have you ever heard of ‘Patient Empowerment’?

In his book “Saiko no Iryo wo Ukeru tame no Kanjagaku” (patient empowerment in receiving the best medical care), author UEONO Naoto says that it takes time to change a system and that it is difficult to change the health care workers right in front of you. It is simple however, to change how you behave, and that could happen right now, in the blink of an eye. In order to raise the level of health care and be satisfied with the care you get all it takes is for you to start changing today. Aren’t patients the only people that can speed up the reforming of health care in Japan?

In Japan we are seeing doctors who don’t fully explain to their patients about the course of treatment or prescription of medication. Likewise, some patients leave their care in the hands of a doctor without them fully understanding what is actually wrong. ‘Patient Empowerment’ is about changing the face of healthcare through patients themselves taking more of an active role. There is more communication between patients, doctors and health care related staff and it all aims to use more of a team approach in which patients are more involved with the course of their treatment.

Sooooo, if this is the case in medicine, then I thought maybe there could be ‘student empowerment’ in education. And no, I’m not saying that students are the same as patients. First and foremost, students are not ‘customers’ of a university and therefore thinking that you should be treated as a ‘customer’ just because you are paying fees is a mistake.

Although I’m sure there aren’t any students at APU who think like this (haha).

No. Students are better than that.

If more students worked together as a team with faculty and staff to more seriously think about what, why and how to study, we would be able to advance the education at APU in a heartbeat. Maybe if students studied about what their role was and what they needed to do at university in order to grow, this would be ‘Student Empowerment’.

A university is not a business to get a profit. It is a non-profit making management entity, a community in which everyone is learning – students, faculty, administration staff and the various people employed around the campus. A community in which graduates, local citizens, children, and in fact every person who comes to the campus is learning. Whatever spin I put on it though, the central characters learning the most are you, the students. The universities as we know them today date all the way back to Europe in the Middle Ages and started out as federations of student and faculty guilds. We can’t forget that students and faculty used to work together, as equals, in the building up and development of universities.

I know I’ve gone on a bit, but in short, APU can change for the better if students change. Lured by the students, everyone will start to ‘hustle’. Hmmm, hustle, that’s probably bit of an uncool word now.

UENO, N. (2006). Saiko no Iryo wo Ukeru tame no Kanjagaku. Kodansha +α Shinsho