Yamagata Prefectural University of Health Sciences

Yamagata Prefectural University of Health Sciences (YPUHS) was initially founded in 1954 as Yamagata Prefectural Advanced Nursing School. In April, 1997, the nursing school was reorganized to a 3-years system college for health professions including registered nurses, public health nurses, midwifes, physical therapists and occupational therapists. The college was then expanded as a university of 4-years system consisting of the Department of Nursing, the Department of Physical Therapy and the Department of Occupational Therapy in April, 2000. A Graduate School of Health Sciences was also established in 2004.

We will provide content that includes broad-based education, whole-hearted humanity, a high degree of expertise and technical skill.

We will return the results of our educational and clinical researches to the local region, as well as fostering future leaders in the field of nursing, physical and occupational therapy who can participate and contribute to the health and welfare of the people of Yamagata, Japan and the world.

The educational program is designed to educate students with the professional knowledge and skills that will enable them to play a key part in the medical and social welfare systems. Based on the philosophy of education, we uphold the following six educational aims.

• To foster in our students moral understanding based on the dignity of life and society, and teach them to think and act flexibly, with comprehensive humanity.
• To foster the ability to morally act on the people by teaching professional knowledge and skills.
• To foster the ability to understand the roll of professional health workers, and to respond with medical care through cooperation and collaboration with other specialists in the fields of health, medicine and welfare.
• To foster the ability to develop health science through self-development and a willingness to do challenge unknown subjects.
• To foster the ability to understand the diversity of our world, communicate with other cultures and act with an internationalized field of vision.
• To foster the ability to understand a local culture and to develop the standard of health and medical care practices in local region.

YPUHS aspires to foster diversification and sophistication to deal with complicated and advanced nursing care and rehabilitation, teaching a high level of knowledge and skill to offer the appropriate support towards safe and reliable care services, as well as nurturing rich creativity and accurate problem solving qualities. Considerations have also been made to improve learning from others by having students of each field learn together so that they can work together in the future, which is so important in today’s interprofessional collaboration. We will be able to cultivate those basics to help students in one field understand the roles, health and medical care issues in other fields to enhance cooperation in the real world of welfare.

YPUHS is also concerned, as one of our educational objectives, to encourage students to perform on the international stage with a proper international perspective. Indeed, YPUHS have achieved academic and educational cooperation continuously with both the University of Colorado (Nursing and Physical Therapy) and the Colorado State University (Occupational Therapy) in Colorado, U.S.A for over 10 years.

A beautiful grass lawn covers the park through which the clear waters of the Takase River flow that the salmon swim up to lay eggs in autumn. The university, built in European style, lies to one side, while the Yamagata Prefectural Central Hospital, providing the majority of our practical training, borders the other side of this park.