J：The doctor’s hospital has been making a conscious and creative effort in recognizing cell therapy to owners, including putting out news and other printed materials for owners.
Yokoyama：I use various media to somehow scatter the name of the hospital and the word “cell therapy,” and hope that people will remember it there when something happens. I don’t want to have it thrust in front of them. I don’t think they need to react immediately.
J：When I spoke to you before, I thought it was wonderful, especially the hospital staff’s system for regenerative medicine.
Yokoyama：At our hospital, the regenerative medicine team for cell culture and cell therapy consists of veterinarians, clinical technologists, nurses, cell culturists, and an academic advisor (Doctor of Science) to incorporate cutting-edge overseas papers and knowledge into the hospital. The reason why we organized such a team is because we want to “bring smiles to our staff’s faces. We wanted to do this not as a one-sided effort, but as a solid effort. When I ask employees at other hospitals who do cell culture, they say it’s a hassle. Staff don’t like it when something new is added to their already full plate. When I saw the nurses in charge of culture at our hospital working hard until late at night, I thought this was not quite right. I thought, “This is not making them happy. It is meaningless if only the owner is happy. Then I wanted to create a team so that it would not interfere with business operations and make the staff happy as well. Because we decided to do this with such a system in place, it is important to manage it properly and have the owners choose regenerative medicine. Otherwise, it will not become a sought-after treatment. The team was to create a form for the treatment to become sought after.
Yokoyama：As a regenerative medicine team, it is important to collaborate with veterinarians, laboratory technicians, nurses, cell culturists, and academic staff, and this kind of tool is necessary to connect each of them (see photo above). This tool allows each of them to communicate to the owners exactly how the treatment is progressing and what is happening. In particular, we create a treatment progress report to inform owners of what we are doing (*At Sakura Veterinary Hospital, a report is created for each dose to provide owners with information on the condition of the cells, photos, seeding and passaging so that they can easily understand the process). For the owners, pictures of the cells are actually not very important (lol), but it is reassuring to see pictures of the good faces of the dogs and cats receiving treatment. I know it’s obvious, but I think it’s important to make an effort to be visible. I think that if we come up with the idea of going this far in terms of how acceptable we can be and how we can help the owners feel, we should do it. (Laughs.) “Will you go this far? (Laughs) We want the treatment to penetrate the hearts of the owners.
「Everything is connected.」
J：Do you have a message for practitioners or young doctors who are interested in cell therapy?
Yokoyama：Rather than initially trying to increase the number of people coming to the hospital for regenerative medicine, they will raise the bar for themselves by doing cell therapy, and this will motivate them. The staff will also feel that they must become a hospital that is trusted. This in turn will lead to the owners following them, and ultimately build a relationship of trust with them. I think the key is how to successfully create such a good cycle.
Regenerative medicine is one tool to gain trust with owners. Trust is not gained by regenerative medicine, nor should regenerative medicine or cell therapy be the only thing that sticks out. Also, it is not a shortcut to say that introducing these things will solve everything. For example, if we are going to do activated lymphocyte therapy in cancer treatment, I believe that the three major therapies must be able to work well together.
If it is worthwhile, I think it will pay off in the end. By introducing cell therapy, other places come up. The owners are smiling and the animals are getting better. More important than that goal is that the hospital’s presence there also makes the people around it happy. When animals are happy, their families smile. This in turn makes the world smile. I think it is all connected.
J：Thank you very much for your valuable talk today.
（Interview Date: August 7, 2013）
Sakura Animal Clinic Annex Nagano Animal Ophthalmological Clinic
Adress: 518-22 Otsu, Komoro City, Nagano 384-0802, Japan
Phone：0267-26-5600
http://www.sakura-komoro.jp