Rinsho Shinkeigaku (Clinical Neurology)

The 47th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Neurology

Observation and description -Neurology as a field work science-

Makoto Iwata, M.D.

Department of Neurology, Tokyo Women's Medical University

Scientific researches in medicine could be classified into two categories; an experimental medicine or a science for solving various problems and a field work medicine for discovering new problems. Although both fields of medical researches are requisite for the real progress of medicine, the importance of the latter field is now a little neglected. As the President of the 47th annual meeting of Japanese Society of Neurology, I chose "Quo vadis, Neurologia" quoting Sienkiewicz as a grand theme of the meeting and tried to find out answers to secure the future of clinical neurology. This presidential lecture is to stress the importance of a field work type of clinical researches in neurological sciences to which we, clinical neurologists, have the privileges of daily access.

(CLINICA NEUROL, 46: 745|750, 2006)
key words: observation, description, field work, clinical neurology

(Received: 11-May-06)