Sapporo Medical University

Overview

Sapporo Medical University

Sapporo Medical University (SMU) is a public research university in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan. It was established in 1945 as Hokkaidō Women's Medical College and was chartered as a university in 1950. It is the first medical university under the country’s new postwar medical university system. Its notable course offerings include medicine, biochemistry, and genetics.

Sapporo Medical University Key Statistics

The university comprises two faculties, four departments, and two graduate schools, including the Department of Occupational Therapy, the Department of Physical Therapy, and the Department of Nursing. It offers five undergraduate, three master's, and six doctorate programs. Some of its most sought-after postgraduate programs include master's in nursing, master's in physical therapy and occupational therapy, and doctorate in community health and comprehensive medicine.

SMU's student population is approximately 1,000. It employs 1,600 staff, including faculty members and administrators throughout the university campus that comprises several buildings, among them, the Sapporo Medical University Hospital, Animal Research Center, Marine Biological Institute, and the Biomedical Research Center.

Among Sapporo Medical University key statistics is the Sapporo Medical University Library that holds about 87,400 books,132,400 magazines, nearly 6,500 booklets, and more than 5,500 electronic journals. Aside from the library, the university also manages the Biomedical Museum established in 1972. The museum is home to at least 45,000 various medical specimens, including human, anatomy, forensic medicine, and pathology.

SMU is an affiliate member of several national and international organizations. These include the Sapporo Medical University Hospital, the International Medical Exchanges, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Sapporo Medical University Research

Research at SMU is recognized for its contributions to medical and dental sciences. The Department of Community and Industry Partnerships oversees the acquisition of external resources to fund SMU’s research activities. Among the contributors are the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences for Japanese Junior Scientists, the Scientific Research Fund of the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Its top fields of research are medicine, biology, and pathology. Sapporo Medical University research outputs have been published in prestigious journals like Hypertension Research, the Journal of Hepato-biliary-pancreatic Sciences, and Cancer Research. Its researchers have attended major scholarly conferences such as MICCAI: Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, CARS: Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, and EMBC: International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

The most cited Sapporo Medical University research publication is Tsuchihashi et al.'s (2001) "Transient left ventricular apical ballooning without coronary artery stenosis: A novel heart syndrome mimicking acute myocardial infarction." This was published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology and cited 2,237 times to date.

The university’s second most cited publication is Deshpande et al.'s (2012) "Consensus statement on the pathology of IgG4-related disease," which was featured in Modern Pathology and has logged 2,103 citations thus far.

Moreover, the university’s third most cited publication is Umehara et al.'s (2012) "Comprehensive diagnostic criteria for IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD), 2011,” which was published in Modern Rheumatology with 1,859 citations.

The university has several research centers and institutes. These include the Research Institute for Frontier Medicine, the Animal Research Center, and the Education and Research Equipment Center.