The heavy burden of?clinical hours and administrative duties has left Japan¡¯s university doctors struggling to?devote time to?research ¨C and could result in?big shortcomings in?the field, scholars warn.

, two Keio University researchers emphasise the ¡°seriousness of the situation¡±, as?reflected in?recent figures.

Amid an overall decline in Japanese research since the early 2000s, faculty members at universities have ¡°been forced to devote more time to education and social service activities¡±, write Shotaro Kinoshita and Taishiro Kishimoto.

The authors note the ¡°appalling results¡± of a 2023 survey covering 81 universities, which found that on average, 50?per cent of?professors and almost 65?per cent of assistant professors spent?less than five hours per week on?research.

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With changes this coming April prohibiting physicians from working more than 960 hours of overtime a year, the authors worry that even less time will be given over to undertaking lab work and clinical trials ¨C tasks that ultimately help to advance medicine.

¡°Although securing research hours for university hospital physicians in Japan has been a problem, there are fears that the situation could further worsen,¡± the authors write.

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Noriko Osumi, a neuroscientist and vice-president for diversity at Tohoku University, agreed that ¡°this has been a very serious problem in?Japan¡±.

She traced the issue back to Tokyo¡¯s restructuring of public universities into ¡°national university corporations¡± in 2004, a move that reduced their government funding ¨C something the authors also note.

¡°To deal with decreased budgets, medical doctors in university hospitals need to do more clinical work to earn money for the universities,¡± she said.

Professor Osumi said that ideally, Japanese physician-researchers would spend roughly 20?hours a?week on research ¨C compared with the 40?to 50?hours of a full-time researcher, although she conceded that this might be more research than some clinicians would want to do.

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To carve out more time, Japan¡¯s government and universities could bring in more professional nurses, assign some of doctors¡¯ current tasks to other staff and promote digitisation ¨C something that is sorely needed, with much of Japan¡¯s record-keeping still done using paper and faxes.

But some of these changes will require a shift in mindset, Professor Osumi said.

¡°In Japan, clinical research is not [easily] done by PhD researchers, who have no access to clinical data, which is also the basis of why medical research especially declines in Japan¡­Unfortunately, in [the] clinical department, graduate students are also medical doctors and they also need to work at hospitals.¡±

Akira Mori, a scholar at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo, said that while the lack of time for research was a serious concern for the medical field, the problem was widespread, with government support to universities having ¡°notably¡± decreased in recent years ¨C constraining research while ¡°simultaneously increasing obligations in education and public services¡±.

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¡°I see no compelling reason to specify this issue as unique to university physicians,¡± he said, adding that the problem affected disciplines from the sciences to the humanities.

¡°A significant shift in governmental support is essential to reverse the situation in university research capabilities across all fields.¡±

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pola.lem@timeshighereducation.com