Greeting
Kiyoko Kato, Chairperson of the Executive Board, Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology
An organization committed to being strong, kind, and reliable in keeping with the Society’s slogan: “living, cooperating, and creating together”
I wish everyone ongoing success and prosperity.
I am Kiyoko Kato, the designated sixth-generation chairperson of the new Executive Board as established following the General Assembly on June 24, 2023. Our Society introduced the position of chairperson of the Executive Board in 2005, and the Society has undergone significant development under the first- to fifth-generation chairpersons; Prof. Yuji Taketani, Prof. Yasunori Yoshimura, Prof. Ikuo Konishi, Prof. Tomoyuki Fujii, and Prof. Tadashi Kimura. I will exert my utmost efforts to serving the term of two years alongside members of the Society in pursuit of the following objective: Contributing to the welfare of humankind and society through the advancement and development of obstetrics and gynecology.
At first, I introduce myself. After graduating from the Kyushu University School of Medicine in March 1986, I joined the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University. Following completion of my residency at the affiliated hospital, I married and moved to the United States where I worked at the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation (now the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute) in San Diego, California, for three years. Upon returning to Japan, I worked at the Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University Hospital, in Beppu, Oita, and then Kyushu University Hospital in Fukuoka, followed by Juntendo University in Tokyo. Since 2012, I have been a professor in the Department of Reproductive and Developmental Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kyushu University Hospital. In our Society, I served as an Executive Board member responsible for public relations for two years and editing for eight years. Regarding the editing duties, I was editor-in-chief (EIC) of the official organ in Japanese and the official publications in English of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (JOGR). As a Board member of the Asia and Oceania Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (AOFOG), I helped to promote international relations with Asian countries. Moreover, I also served as vice chairperson to the then chairperson Prof. Kimura for operation of our Society over a four-year period and headed the Women’s Health Care Committee and the Research Committee for the Former Eugenic Protection Act. In August 2022, we held the 74th Annual Congress of JSOG in Fukuoka.
For those in clinical practice in obstetrics and gynecology, given the uneven distribution of physicians, new challenges have emerged, including providing support for physicians who wish to return to work following maternity leave, and addressing issues related to molecularly targeted drugs and exhaustive genome sequence analyses that have become clinically available through advances in molecular biological methods in related academic fields, as well as the urgent need for ethical oversight in relation to personal/gene information. Strategies to address novel infections, including COVID-19, have also appeared as a new challenge. Internationalization of an academic society is also important in the post-COVID-19 era. From a societal perspective, we face a mountain of issues related to noninvasive prenatal genetic testing (NIPT) and preimplantation genetic testing (PGT-A/SR and PGT-M); activities in the area of sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) regarding abortion, contraception, sexual assault, and sex education; and how to respond to the trend toward later-age marriage and childbearing, along with the declining birthrate. “Adaptation to diversity” and “cooperation” could be future keywords when we consider those issues in detail.
Based on the above, we will clarify our mission and vision as an academic organization to construct a system that allows us to address the different issues in cooperation with other academic societies and parties in other fields in being a strong, kind, and reliable Society under the slogan: “living, cooperating, and creating together.”
Our specific action plans are as follows:
If any new issue arises, we will construct an additional system to facilitate rapid action. Thank you in anticipation of your understanding and cooperation with our operations and activities.
Kiyoko Kato, MD, PhD
Chairperson of the Executive Board
Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology