Nobuko Kurosaki, Part 3

Striving to support the weak

Nobuko Kurosaki with handball teammates in high school. (Nobuko is in the front row, left.)

Nobuko Kurosaki

Born in Nagasaki Prefecture in 1957. She belonged to the handball team in high school and the "soft tennis" team in university. After graduating from the School of Medicine of Nagasaki University, she received medical training at Tokyo Women's Medical University. She then specialized in pediatric surgery at Nagasaki University. Ms. Kurosaki joined MSF in 2001. She has been dispatched as a surgeon to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Liberia, and Nigeria and other locations nine times to date, engaging in medical aid activities. She became president of MSF Japan in March 2010.

When I was a child, I said to a surgeon I knew: "I want to be a doctor in the future." But the man told me: "Girls are happier being wives than workers. Women don't need to be doctors." During my school days, I studied hard like everyone else, and I didn't experience any discrimination because I'm a woman. After I graduated and decided to become a surgeon, I can't recall any things that were said in this regard. Because there were a number of female surgeons in the hospital where I underwent training, I encountered few difficulties related to my gender.

However, when I returned to Nagasaki University Hospital and began working there, I was taking a male patient to the operating room when he complained: "Are you going to put your hands inside my abdomen?" His question upset me.

To tell the truth, from the time I started my medical training in Tokyo, to avoid any criticism of my gender, I went into the hospital ward earlier than anyone else and stayed there as late as I could. I was in the hospital before the patients woke up and I returned home after the lights were put out. As a result, the nurses there came to rely on me.

After I returned to Nagasaki, I continued that way of working. Once one of my senior colleagues told me: "When I heard you were coming back to Nagasaki, I wondered if you would be a brash person. But, in reality, you've worked hard and studied hard and you've been a good teacher to the younger doctors and nurses."

At one point I was invited by a group of working women to attend a meeting which involved discussion about women's experiences and ways to address issues related to women and children. I knew that there was discrimination against women doctors, but I found that women in other fields face similar difficulties and have overcome them. Later, I became a member of a national organization that works to improve the position and the work environment of working women.

In 1998, I visited Jordan and Egypt as part of an exchange project involving Japanese and Middle Eastern women, supported by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2005, I served as the leader of a delegation which visited these countries, as well as Palestine. I had the image that women in the Middle East suffered severe discrimination, but in fact, I found many women in positions involved in determining the policies of their nations. Ordinary women were active, too. In the countryside, poverty prevented girls and women from going to school, but they were provided opportunities and support to become independent in other ways.

In my work, I have encountered a mother who was forced into a divorce because she gave birth to a disabled child, as well as parents concerned about their children being bullied or refusing to attend school due to a physical handicap stemming from an operation. I came to feel that we have to change society to make it a place where children fighting health problems are welcomed, instead of shunned, and so I became actively involved in social activities outside my work as a doctor.

In 2007 and 2008, I was appointed an alternate representative of the Japanese government to the General Assembly of the United Nations. I spent about two months in New York, where I attended meetings which discussed human rights and other issues. I came to see that the international community is working to protect the rights of women and children everywhere in the world. For instance, efforts are being made to reduce the number of women who die in childbirth and cut the number of girls unable to attend elementary school to zero.

Sometimes I used to wish I was a man, but I no longer feel that way. In terms of being able to understand the feelings of minorities and the weak, I think it was good that I was born a woman. Thanks to the support of many people, I've enjoyed a lot of enriching experiences.

Through my work with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors without Borders), I will strive to stay close to the local people and continue giving my best effort alongside my colleagues.