Students for International Mission Service (SIMS)

Outlook 1998

Okinawa by Sumie Higa, senior, School of Nursing

Okinawa Adventist Medical Center is where nursing student Sumie Higa experienced ten weeks of mission service, hard work, and fun.

Okinawa Seventh-day Adventist Medical Center is located on an island at the most southern part of Japan. There are approximately 150 workers including the health-care professionals and administrators at the Medical Center.

The hospital contains outpatient and inpatient services mostly for obstetrics and gynecology, dermatology, internal medicine, pediatrics, and surgery.

I was able to rotate around the hospital units during my ten weeks of experience, and to scrub in for a cesarean section in the operating room.

What I was most impressed about in the operating room was that the physician would hold the patients' hands before the surgery to pray with the team.

I learned so much about Japanese culture at the inpatient services.

It was so much fun to work as part of a functional nursing team because the nurses really worked together as a team.

I felt rewarded for what I did because the hospital staff members appreciated my volunteer work. Volunteering does not seem to be common in Japan. Also, the patients were so nice. It was rewarding to work with patients who respected and appreciated everything I did.

I was able to speak English quite often because there were missionary doctors from Loma Linda, patients from military bases, and crews off cargo ships.

On my free days, I had so much fun going to tropical beaches, Okinawan festivals, tourist attractions, and of course, shopping and eating.

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