Report on Human Gross Anatomy at University of Hawaii 

written by Takashi Sakai 

(Canadian College of Shiatsu Therapy Student)

The week leading up to Spring Break 2008 at the Canadian College of Shiatsu Therapy (CCST) proved to be a memorable time for several students and instructors when they were invited to beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii to participate in the Japan Shiatsu Anatomy Workshop, sponsored by the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in collaboration with the Japan Shiatsu College in Tokyo. 

Representing the CCST were Kiyoshi-Sensei, Yoko-Sensei, Judy-Sensei, Jack Miro, Spring Lu, and Takashi Sakai.

HOSPITAL FIELDWORK

Warm sunshine marked our arrival on Thursday, March 13 at the Kuakini Health System, which was founded in 1900 as the Japanese Charity Hospital by Japanese immigrants. 
Our mission:  To give Shiatsu to weary hospital staff, so they could experience the benefits of Shiatsu first hand.  We were joined by colleagues from two other schools.  Approximately 30 were from the Japan Shiatsu College in Tokyo, and we were honoured to meet the school's principal, Dr. Hiroshi Ishizuka, as well as teachers Kurosawa-Sensei, Kaneko-Sensei, and Ishizuka-Sensei.  Another dozen or so were from the Aisen Shiatsu School in Honolulu, led by the colourful Indei-Sensei.

 The day was a huge success.  In just two short hours, we managed to give over 250 Shiatsu treatments to hospital staff, each one receiving at least 15 minutes of Shiatsu on the neck, shoulders, back, and often the arms while seated in a chair.  It was very gratifying to see such a large turnout of doctors, nurses, lab assistants, dietitians, cafeteria servers -- workers from all walks of hospital life -- eager to receive Shiatsu and leaving satisfied at the end, with quite a few coming back for more!

RECEPTION PARTY

That evening we enjoyed a wonderful buffet-style dinner at the Waikiki Cheeseburger Cafe, where we had the privilege to meet Kazutami Namikoshi-Sensei, son of the late Tokujiro Namikoshi-Sensei and current Chair of the Japan Shiatsu College.

ANATOMY WORKSHOP

No doubt the educational highlight of our trip was the March 15 and 16 weekend Anatomy Workshop at the University of Hawaii's John A. Burns School of Medicine, whose spectacular new bioresearch building opened in 2005 by the Kakaako Waterfront Park, halfway between Waikiki and Honolulu International Airport.  On the ground floor of this building is the gross anatomy lab, where we would spend the next two days dissecting cadavers in a quest to learn human anatomy from a perspective no textbook could ever provide.

Our host was Dr. Scott Lozanoff, the current Chair of the Department of Anatomy, Biochemistry, and Physiology.  An Ohio native, Dr. Lozanoff seemed genuinely pleased to meet the CCST group, as he had fond memories of Vancouver and his time at UBC as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Orthodontics from 1984 to 1987.  We were very fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from him.  His command of the subject matter, as well as the respect he both gave to and received from his students and staff, made it easy to see why he has earned a teaching award of excellence during his career.

After donning laboratory gear such as face masks, hair nets, and latex gloves, we started with a moment of silent prayer to honour the spirits of those who had generously agreed to donate their bodies to the medical school.  We would begin and end each day in this manner, and I was moved by the level of respect and dignity that all the participants displayed.  The director of the anatomy lab, Steven Labrash, a licenced funeral director and embalmer, explained that the university receives about 30 bodies a year as part of the "Willed Body Program".  The Shiatsu people would be dissecting four of the cadavers, and we quickly divided into four roughly equal groups, one per cadaver.

As it turned out, all of us from the CCST ended up in the same group along with three students from the Japan Shiatsu College, one of whom was a Canadian named Sandy who interpreted for his classmates the explanations of Dr. Lozanoff, who was leading our group.  We would be performing dissection on "Rodney", a mechanic and smoker who had died at age 50 of metastatic lung cancer.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of cutting into a human body for the first time and opening it up.  Once this initial psychological hurdle was overcome, all of our anatomy classes at the CCST suddenly came to life.  Here were muscles and tendons, nerves and blood vessels, bones and viscera spread before us in full three-dimensional beauty!  We all worked hard throughout the weekend to learn as much as we could, and it was easy to develop an entirely new appreciation for the wonder and complexity of the people for whom we perform Shiatsu treatments.  Truly unforgettable.

I would like to thank the many people who made this experience possible:  the participants in the Willed Body Program, as well as everyone at the Japan Shiatsu College, the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the Aisen Shiatsu School and, of course, the CCST.  I hope that more students from the CCST will have the opportunity to attend the Japan Shiatsu Anatomy Workshop in coming years, not only for the academic enrichment, but also to appreciate the warmth and beauty of Hawaii.