In 1976, “general practice” was first promoted as a new department in the field of medical care in Japan.

In 1993, the first “Section of General Practice” was opened along with our new Osaka City University Hospital building.

In 2002, “the Department of General Practice” was established with five dedicated medical faculty staff.

In 2004, “the Department of Post-Graduate Medical Education” was newly founded and merged with the Department of General Practice. The Department of General Practice and Post-Graduate Medical Education was officially established, and Professor Kazuhiro Hirohashi was appointed the first professor and chair of this department. Since then, we have provided general practice and primary care for outpatients through multimodal clinics specializing in areas such as women’s health, traditional Chinese medicine, headache, and smoking cessation.

In 2007, Professor Kazuhiro Hirohashi and Associate Professor Taichi Shutou opened the Skills Simulation Center (SSC) supported in part by a grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education. Not only medical and nursing students, but also medical doctors, nurses, other medical staff, and general citizens train at the center. In the ten years that have passed since the SSC was opened, the average number of users has been approximately 15,000 per year, and the cumulative total number of users has exceeded 100,000.

In 2013, given the incremental growth of general practice with the foundation of the general practice ward for inpatients and considering the medical education offered for medical students as well as medical residents and doctors who have graduated from medical schools in our institute, the Department of General Practice and Post-Graduate Medical Education was renamed the Department of Medical Education and General Practice.

In 2014, Professor Taichi Shutou was appointed as the professor and chair of the Department of Medical Education and General Practice.

Our motto is “We care, We treat.”

Our department has been growing every year with an increasing number of both outpatients and inpatients, and has been working on expansion of medical education including the enrichment of the Skills Simulation Center, seamless medical education from before to after graduation as well as lifelong and inter-professional education, and development of medical research and publications. Based on the growth and expansion of our department, we would like to produce professional medical staff who contribute greatly to the development of medicine and the medical sciences.