Short Bio
Dr Shuji Shimizu, M.D. Ph.D. is a surgeon, currently being Vice President of Kyushu University, and the Chairman and Professor of the Department of International Medical Department as well as the Director of the Telemedicine Development Centre of Asia. Since 2002, he has facilitated a comprehensive telemedicine project, which has widely spread in various Asia-Pacific regions and is expanding globally. He has invited more than 500 young doctors and technical staff from all over the world for medical and engineering training as the Director of Overseas Exchange Center. Dr Shimizu organized the Medical Working Group of the Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) in 2005 and started Asia Telemedicine Symposium in 2007.
Telemedicine in Asia and beyond: Possible expansion to UAE
With the tight restriction of physical movement, COVID-19 drastically changed our life-style and forced us to communicate online all over the world. People felt inconvenience without direct human touch, but at the same time, we have re-recognized the efficiency of remote communications. We started remote medical education in 2002 with the development of new telemedicine system which could preserve the quality of transmitted images without any costly special videoconferencing equipment. It rapidly expanded in Asia as well as other parts of the world, having collaborated with 1028 institutions in 75 countries and organized over 1200 programs so far in 39 medical fields such as endoscopy and surgery. Now UAE is one of our top priorities of activity expansion and we would like to discuss how we can achieve it.