Earlier this year, the beautiful article Remembering Keisuke Fujita, M.D., Ph.D., President and Founder of Fujita Health University, and his contributions to medical science and education was published in Fujita Medical Journal, written by his member of staff and long-term friend, Prof. Toshiharu Nagatsu of Fujita Health University. Maybe some of you didn’t see it, which is why I like to advertise it here.
It is a beautiful article about Prof. Fujita, how he founded our University in 1968, his science, his teaching, and his character. Captivating quotes from the article, that I recommend everyone to read, are:
“Dr. Fujita respected science as the basis of academia. “Our creativity for the people (dokuso-ichiri)”, is the School motto of Fujita Health University set by Dr. Fujita. He also emphasized the motto of FHU Hospitals in clinical practice: “We will treat suffering patients with INFINITE COMPASSION always with great humanity and modesty.” In his research activities, he also emphasized importance of cooperation with a modest attitude even during times of severe competition.”
“Dr. Fujita respected the research themes that were proposed based on the personal interests of each researcher, and he never forced researchers to work on some special projects.”
“His attitude toward education was very clear, and he was a firm as a leader with great charisma, but he was always kind and warmhearted to his students. He respected the individuality of each student and always mentioned to the teaching staffs that “education” means to “educe” (bring out or develop) the capability of each student.”
“Dr. Fujita published 154 papers in international journals with high impact factors [of which three in Nature] and 24 reviews published in various international conference proceedings, over the 40 years period from 1955 to 1995. These papers have been cited 5233 times and in 2020, his papers had an h-index of 35, which indicates that 35 manuscripts were cited over 35 times. The high number of citations and the h-index of 35 indicate the high impact of publications. It is rare for a founder and top leader of a university responsible for active administrator duties like Dr. Fujita to publish so many scientific papers in international journals and proceedings with high impact factors.”
Prof. Nagatsu summarized the philosophy of Prof. Fujita about research in Table 1 of his article: