A battle for supremacy breaks out at Osaka Public University Hospital! A direct interview with the “candidate for hospital director” in the middle of the battle!

The struggle for supremacy over personnel matters at the university hospital, like Toyoko Yamazaki’s novel “The Great White Tower,” has led to the unusual situation of the hospital director’s absence.

Osaka Public University opened on April 1 of this year after Osaka Prefecture University and Osaka City University merged. It became the third largest public university in Japan in terms of enrollment capacity, following Osaka University and the University of Tokyo. With this integration, the city university-affiliated hospital was also reborn as the new “Osaka Public University Medical School Hospital,” but now there is an unusual situation in which the hospital is without a director.

Last December, the first director selection meeting was held at the School of Medicine. At the end of January of this year, the committee narrowed down the list to one candidate based on his experience and ability.

The selection committee chose Tetsuo Arakawa, then president of the city university, as its candidate for the post of director.

In March, however, someone came forward to challenge the selection committee’s decision. Yoshiki Nishizawa, 76, president of the Osaka Public University Corporation, which manages the university, said, “Mr. Nishizawa is the only person in the world who has the experience and knowledge to run the university.

Mr. Nishizawa claimed that the appointment of the president of Osaka City University as director of the hospital was a “descent-like appointment” and demanded a reconsideration of the decision. Even after the third-party committee concluded that there were no problems in the selection process, Nishizawa, the final appointee, refused to approve the appointment, saying, ‘There were flaws in the rules (of the selection process). The situation has become a quagmire.

Mr. Arakawa, a candidate for the post of director, is a graduate of the city university’s medical school. In 2000, he became a professor at the graduate school of the university, and in 2004, after serving as vice president of the affiliated hospital, he became president of the university in 2004. He retired as president in March of this year. Dr. Nishizawa, on the other hand, is also a graduate of the city university’s medical school and became chairman of the Osaka Public University’s governing body in 1919.

Dr. Arakawa is from the Department of Gastroenterology, known as the Third Department of Internal Medicine, while Dr. Nishizawa, who is five years older than Dr. Arakawa, is from the Second Department of Cardiology. Although they are rivals, Dr. Nishizawa has been Zen-assigning to Dr. Arakawa the positions of vice president of the hospital and president, which he has been sitting in. However, his relationship with Dr. Arakawa, who is very outspoken, has cracked, and Dr. Nishizawa has nominated Dr. X, a neurosurgeon, as a candidate for the position of director. He must think that Dr. X is someone he can bring under his control.

Goro Zaizen, an assistant professor of the First Department of Surgery at Naniwa University Hospital, has been in the media spotlight for his excellent surgical skills. There are whispers within the university that the plot of the story is similar to that of the novel “Shiroi Kyotou,” in which the current professor, Azuma Teizo, who dislikes him, plots behind the scenes to prevent Zaizen’s appointment as a professor.

Dr. Arakawa is popular because of his friendly personality. Since 2008, he has also been presenting a radio program on Radio Osaka titled “Arakawa Tetsuo no Genki Dattaite Yuko! Tetsuo Arakawa has also had his own radio program, “Teccannnel,” on Radio Osaka since 2008, and has had a lot of media exposure. He also has a sense of humor. When he was president of the university, he made the most of his culinary skills and held a competition on campus between a curry created by a student and the president’s beef stew. On the other hand, he is someone who can clearly say no, even if the other party is the president of a corporation.

On the other hand, Dr. Nishizawa is a scholarly and serious person.’ In 1919, he made headlines when he became the chairman of the operator selection committee for the IR project that Osaka Prefecture and the city are trying to attract to the city.”

The uproar was so great that Osaka City Mayor Ichiro Matsui joined Mr. Nishizawa, saying, “The authority for personnel affairs rests with the president of the university corporation. The situation is threatening to spread to the political world.

Mr. Arakawa told this magazine directly, “We are still going through the formal procedures at the selection committee.

The real reason (for refusing to appoint him) is that we are not in a position to know the real reason. （I don’t know the real reason (for refusing the appointment). I think this kind of intervention is a threat to the autonomy of the university, and it also inconveniences patients and students.

Nishizawa, on the other hand, reiterated in a written statement through the corporation that the reason for his refusal of appointment is that it is descent-like. He insists that he will review the director selection process and establish rules for the selection of hospital directors.

If it is ‘descent-like,’ then Dr. X, whom Dr. Nishizawa recommended, is also ‘descent-like,’ and that cannot be the reason for refusing the appointment,” said a hospital official.

The infighting that has continued since the school’s opening. It is probably the nature of this university that requires immediate remedy.

From the May 6-13, 2022 issue of “FRIDAY