The idea of keeping everyday life well-being by building a wealth of knowledge for health mainly composed of medicine.
Table of Contents
- Overview
- Main Philosophy
- Main Purpose
- History
- Origin of name
- Association with Oriental Medicine
- Practical Content
- Field of Performance
- Qualification System
- Related topics
1. Overview
IATRISM is a word to describe an ideological philosophy for sustaining physical and emotional health as natural as possible by medical knowledge.
2. Main Philosophy
Healthy life is a desire of all people, regardless of race, nationality, age or gender. Except unsolvable issues at the individual level like war, starvation or pollution, healthy life is obtained by “improving of self-knowledge of health based on medicine and enhancing quality of life”. It is the main philosophy of IATRISM. Therefore, IATRISM is not defined as specific health management method or medical treatment. It is a general idea to help people maintain a healthy condition.
3. Main Purpose
Not surprisingly, most of people do not have knowledge of wellness medicine. In many cases, unconscious irregular living habits could cause various symptoms and illness because lack of medical knowledge has close relation to illness. The main purpose of IATRISM is to avoid this situation and help reduce disease rate dramatically.
4. History
From 1962 until around 1970, Mr. Ryoichi Asada, who was a pioneer in Japanese clinical acupuncture treatment and his motto was “Key to good health is to prevent getting sick”. He proposed “to teach many people medical knowledge becomes a foundation for making society and people healthy”. Then, his grandchild and medical researcher for oriental medicine, Mr. Satoshi Asada organized this philosophy around 1987 and named “IATRISM”.
5. Origin of Name
IATRIM is composed of a combination of “IATRO”, Greek words for medicine and the suffix “-ISM” meaning philosophy, movement, and theory. It is also represented as “intellectual health and medical concept”.
6. Association with Oriental Medicine
The fundamental concept of IATRISM is to have main three elements, well-balanced “diet”, “exercise”, and “sleep” along with mental stability. Also, it is an intellectual health management method of making possible to keep good health by treating at the stage of “Mibyo” in oriental medicine word.
a. Medicine of Health
“Mibyo” is a unique way of thinking of oriental medicine, unfamiliar to contemporary medicine. It is an idea to get health conditions back to normal by being aware of early symptons like “physical fatigue”, “poor appetite”, and “sleep disorder” and prevent a disease from occurring. Therefore, oriental medicine called “Medicine of Health”, which is the medical treatment to be able to keep conditions healthy, not treat after developing disease. Mechanism of treatment efficacy is involved with a large part of body’s homeostasis function.
b. Common with Oriental Medicine
Oriental medicine has effective treatments for bringing upset body’s balance back into a normal by stimulation of acupuncture point and meridian. It is because bodies receive external stimulation and through the stimulation, the bodies recover their homeostasis function, which were lost by disease or other reasons. Then, it leads to enhance the bodies’ natural healing power. That is, Oriental medicine, mainly represented by “Acupuncture and Moxibustion therapy” has the concept that the human body is part of nature and health condition brings back to normal with low-impact and natural method. This idea has deep similarities to IATRISM’s one. Need to be aware that daily life gives big influence on own health. Disordered homeostasis function can be caused by stress and neglect of main three elements of IATRISM, “diet”, “exercise”, and “sleep”.
7. Practical Content
Based on the philosophy listed in “Iatrism Charter“, the concept of IATRISM is composed of a wide range of subjects, such as basic medicine, Oriental medicine, specialized subjects, and practical contents for each subject.
a. Basic Medicine
Basic medicine is composed as follows;
- “Anatomy”
- Learn about structure of body, such as bones, muscles, internal organs, and nerves
- “Physiology”
- Learn about mechanism of life, such as digestion, absorption, respiration, and metabolism.
- “Pathology”
- Learn about type of disease, such as tumor, degeneration, inflammation, and allergy.
- “Hygieiology”
- Learn about disinfection, sterilization, food poisoning, and infection.
b. Oriental Medicine
Oriental medicine is composed as follows;
- “Introduction to Oriental Medicine”
- Learn about concept of Oriental Medicine, such as Yin-Yang and the five elements theory.
- “Oriental Physiology”
- Learn about function of each gut and relation among “Ki” , “Ketsu”, and “Shineki”.
- “Oriental pathology”
- Learn about type of disease based on Oriental Medicine, such as “Hyori”, “Kannetsu”, and “Kyojitsu”.
- “Acupuncture Points Studies”
- Learn about position and effect of acupressure point and meridian, which is used for a treatment.
c. Specialized subject
Specialized subject is composed as follows;
- “Psychology”
- Learn about terminology and meaning of typical psychology.
- “Food”
- Learn about classification and function of nutrition and food group.
- “Beauty”
- Learn about meaning of ingredient of a cosmetic and its effectiveness and related terminology.
- “Medicine”
- Learn about efficacy, ingredient, side effects, and classification of typical hospital drugs, commercial drug and herb medicine.
- “Science”
- Learn knowledge about physics and chemistry to well understand functional mechanism of medical equipment and beauty instruments.
d. Appellation
Originally, people with acquirement of medical knowledge are called “IATRIST”; however, it should be broadly considered all people who have philosophy of IATRISM and try to keep healthy with knowledge and practice.
e. Sign
A trademark of “IATRISM CROSS” is represented as a concept of “IATRISM”. It is expressed alphabetical letter of IATRISM, and red cross composed by four kinds of geometric design. Red color describes synthesizing idea which is blood as symbol of life and “Ki”, “Ketsu”, and “Shineki” in oriental medicine. Similar four different kinds of geometric shapes show graphically that every individual associate with health concept of “IATRISM”. The shape of vertical and horizontal symmetric figure indicates equality for all people in medicine and medical care, and a strong wish of this concept to be delivered to the world.
8. Field of Performance
As an IATRIST, various fields of performance are considered. First, it is possible to take care of one’s own health and people around oneself like a family and friends. Also, it can enable to become an expert advisor of health in medical field, and furthermore use for beauty, food service, nursing care, child care, sports gym, health equipment, and pet industry.
a. Medical Profession
People engaged in medical service are wide range. There are certified people such as doctors, dentists, acupuncturist and moxa‐cauterizer, Bonesetter, pharmacist, nurse, physical therapist, and licensed psychotherapist. In addition to them, there are also pharmaceutical maker, medical-equipment maker, caseworker, and people who support above work/business. Certified people have an advanced medical knowledge of each category; however, they do not know about all of them. Also, although some people in medical service related companies have a certain level of knowledge, it is a reality that the knowledge leans to one side. Therefore, IATRISIM contributes to make up for the lack of the knowledge and cultivate human resources capable of acquiring extensive knowledge.
b. Beauty industry
In beauty industry, many positions, such as hairdresser, barber, beauty therapist, manicurist, cosmetics maker, beauty instruments marker, health food distributor and the dietary-supplements industry, require knowledge of medicine. IATRISM can help them improve explanation capability and ensure appropriate safety. It also makes possible to get more understanding of products, its material and equipment, and proper use of them.
c. School and Institution related
For schools and related facilities, IATRISM is used as method of developing physical strength and exercise, and learning structure of body to, not only those who need special care of their health in day-care centers, pre-schools, facilities for disabled people and senior care homes, but also workers in sports gym and pro-am players.
d. Food Industry
With regard to food industry, workers in fields of restaurants, food manufacturing and food retailers can use IATRISM for their customers to explain about cooking ingredient, nourishment, digestion, and absorption or to provide knowledge of hygienic management like protection against infectious diseases and prevention of food poisoning.
e. Other industries
For other industries, IATRISM can cover a wide range of occupations. As sanitary management, it can be used in places people gather like Japanese inns, hotels, Spa, and hot spring. Also, in the pet industry, IATRISM can make possible to be used for disease control to pets as a member of the family.
9. Qualification System
More and more people are interested in learning medical knowledge in empathy with the idea of IATRISM while there are many cases of putting someone in physical danger like medical accidents, accidents due to cosmetic, food fraud, and food poisoning. The reason comes from the fact that people tend to recognize dreadful problems caused by arrogance of service providers and ignorance of consumers. In addition to it, it is also associated with increasing distrust of consumers toward service providers. As supportive evidence of this situation, in society, there are growing expectations of training true IATRIST and receiving various services without anxiety. To meet the needs, there is an accelerating movement for getting IATRIST institutionalized as a certified qualification.
a. Qualification System
“Japan Oriental Medicine Association” established to manage overall standard of IATRISM concept aims for Training and producing a large number of true IATRIST who have philosophy of IATRISM and wide range of knowledge. They are scheduled to hold certification exams as early as in fiscal year 2018.
b. IATRISM Test
The certification exams whose name will be IATRISM Test are scheduled to hold academic examination based on basic medicine and oriental medicine, and report of specialized subject. The level of the test will be categorized by IATRISM first-class (Master IATRIST), IATRIST second-class (Pre Master IATRIST), IATRIST third-class (IATRIST), and Pre IATRIST.
c. Textbook
Textbook are currently under development at a rapid rate due for completion within the fiscal year 2017.
d. Method of Implementation
Under consideration.