Messages from senior researchers

In graduate school, I conducted research on patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and their families. Currently, while conducting research on post-transplant follow-up outpatient care, I try to practice nursing based on evidence from articles and other sources in my daily work. Although there are many difficulties in my clinical work after my graduate studies, I am once again glad that I went on to higher education because it has made me more aware of the care I can provide to families.
There were seven of us in my class at that time, and we still communicate with each other online. I have found irreplaceable friends with whom I can discuss trivial matters, my current work and research, and my future career.
In the Family Nursing Department, you can consider research on families with various developmental issues. You will be exposed to research in many fields such as pediatrics, maternity, and geriatrics, and the research environment is very conducive to learning diverse research methods. I was able to listen to lectures by prominent foreign professors at GNRC seminars, and received guidance in presenting at conferences and writing papers.
The professors are very kind and enthusiastic in providing guidance. I encourage you to contact this department for more information.

In the process of supporting the transition to home as a nurse in a pediatric ward, I became interested in nursing support for children who require medical care such as suctioning and tube feeding on a daily basis (children with medical care) and their families. I wanted to study the concepts and methodologies required for research that viewed the whole family as a subject of nursing care.
In the seminars in the field of family nursing, I was able to gain new insights each time by frankly exchanging opinions about each other’s research with class members who had clinical and research experience in various fields. The research subjects of the graduate students who were enrolled in the program at the same time included family members of adult cancer patients and people who had lost a family member, and their situations varied from cases that were not easy to approach within medical institutions to cases in which consideration to psychological burden was extremely important.
During my tenure, I was able to present a case study at a family care case study group and write a paper about it, conduct a nationwide survey of parents of children with medical care using a health-related quality of life scale, and conduct an intervention study on support for transition to adult care in the pediatric outpatient department at the University of Tokyo Hospital. As a university faculty member, I am currently conducting research focused on the transition of children with medical care to adult health care, including care for their families. This is a research project that developed from my experience of supporting the transition to adult health care as a member of a joint research team between the Department of Family Nursing and the staff of the University of Tokyo Hospital, and from the questions I had in my clinical practice, which I have been working on throughout my doctoral program.
For those of you who are considering entering the field of family nursing, you will be surrounded by a wide variety of research studies linked by the keyword “famiily,” come into contact with the actual experiences of many patients and their families, and repeatedly consider what it means to be patient- and family-centered, while expanding your perspective in conducting nursing research that will contribute to clinical practice. I believe that this will be a valuable experience that will broaden your perspective on conducting nursing research that contributes to clinical practice.

My first encounter with family nursing was in a university lecture. I remember being exposed to the theory and being intrigued by the idea of approaching the family as a system. As my practical training progressed and I realized the need to understand patients from both medical and lifestyle perspectives, I found it interesting and chose the field of family nursing. In fact, while working as a post-graduate nurse, I realized that family nursing is necessary for appropriate care and decision-making, and I saw the potential for care that includes family members, which can be provided only through nursing. I wanted to be involved in the evidence, systems, and structures that form the foundation of nursing care, so I entered the master’s program in the field of family nursing.
In the classroom, there were professors, seniors, and juniors with various research themes (from maternity to near-death care). Everyone was interested in the “family,” and we were examining various methods of measurement and analysis for each target family form. Therefore, although my research theme was pediatrics, I remember that after presenting my research at the conference, we sometimes had heated discussions about how we could capture what we wanted to know this time, which was an unforgettable experience.
In my current job, I collect and analyze information and think about how it should be done by asking opinions from people in clinical settings and various other places. I feel that the experience I gained in graduate school in logical thinking and the search for the truth by considering various viewpoints has been put to good use.
I think that the trigger for further study can be anything, such as an awareness, a question, an awareness of a problem, or a regret. No matter what stage of the life cycle you are interested in, why not dive into the world of research with an intellectually inquisitive mind, working with professors who have diverse experiences in capturing “family” events?