by
Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor | March 26, 2010
"I try to short-circuit that learning curve by going into the OR and hand-hold the physicians until they get the level of expertise and they're competent on their own," he says. For the last four years, through a company called Nihon Medi-Physics, Dr. Stone has also been traveling to Japan to train physicians there. According to Dr. Stone, by the time he's finished with his program through Nihon he will have trained close to 75 percent of all Japanese physicians who perform the procedure.
Lessons from Japan
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When asked why the Japanese seem so eager to absorb his training, Dr. Stone attributes it to differences in medical culture between Japan and the United States.
In Japan, the health system is partly nationalized (with health insurance, which is mandatory for all Japanese, provided by employers or the government). Doctors are directly salaried by the hospital, according to Dr. Stone. "They all get paid the same salary and work the same hours. There's a different philosophy when it comes to the approach to medicine," he says.
But all is not entirely rosy. Although the Japanese are believed to have lower rates of prostate cancer, Dr. Stone says once diagnosed three-fourths of Japanese men have advanced disease, which is more likely to be fatal.
"The reason is they have no early detection program," he says. "There's no PSA [Prostate-Specific Antigen test] screening, whereas in America it has been going on since 1990." In the U.S., Dr. Stone says more than 80 percent of men will have had their PSA levels checked by the time they turn 57. This in turn means when cancer is discovered, it is usually smaller and more susceptible to treatment and cure.
In fact, in America, the mortality rate from prostate cancer has declined over the last five years. "It used to be 42,000 deaths [a year], now it's 27,000," says Dr. Stone. But in Japan, the outlook is grimmer. "[The death rate has] been going up, and going up substantially over the last number of years," observes Dr. Stone.
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