Tokyo Women's Medical University

Message from Chancellor

The founding spirit and “Sincerity and Compassion” to be enhanced in the future
Be a university which continuously contributes to the society

Tokyo Women’ s Medical University (TWMU) is the only institute in Japan committed to the nurturing of women medical professionals. TWMU was founded in 1900 as Tokyo Women’s Medical School by YOSHIOKA Yayoi, the 27th licensed female doctor of medicine in Japan. The university guiding principle established in 1952 is founded on Yoshioka’s core values and academic philosophy: “to nurture female medical professionals who can contribute to the society and refine their personalities through the pursuit of deep understanding of medical sciences”. The TWMU motto, “Sincerity and Compassion” serves as a beacon to the generations of TWMU scholars and students in their pursuit of advancement in medicine through education, research, and clinical practice.
The year 2024 celebrates the 153rd anniversary of the birth of YOSHIOKA Yayoi and the 124th anniversary of TWMU. Today TWMU promotes the education of skilled female medical professionals who pursue their commitment with unwavering compassion towards patients.
The founder of this University, YOSHIOKA Yayoi also founded the forerunner of this institution, the Tokyo Women’s Medical School 124 years ago in 1900. As a physician herself, she stated that women needed to have economic capacity in order to elevate their extremely low status in society, and that medicine and medical science were creditable professions suited for women. The percentage of female doctors working in medical facilities in Japan today appears to be on the rise in recent years in a remarkable increase: from 9.4% about 50 years ago in 1976, to 23.6% in 2022 according to the statistics from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Further, looking at the percentage of students enrolled in medical school, the figure was near the 10% figure in the 1970s, but reached 40.2% in 2023. On the other hand, compared to the figures of other countries, according to the 2019 data published by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), at 22.8%, Japan ranks the lowest among the 38 OECD member countries in terms of the percentage of female doctors. Against this background, as the sole women’s medical university in Japan, the significance of this university and the role it will play are very important.
This university will continue to play its part in nurturing outstanding female medical professionals to inherit YOSHIOKA Yayoi's vision and contribute to society as a “patient-first” medical institution providing high-quality, safe, and reliable medical care.

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Message from President

Knowledge and virtue are the two halves of the whole in medicine

Tokyo Women’ s Medical University, which was founded in 1900 and has a long history, celebrated the 120th anniversary in 2020. Our founding spirit is “to nurture female medical professionals who can contribute to the society and refine their personalities through the pursuit of deep understanding of medical sciences” . Medicine is making signficant advancement through the genome analysis, utilization of AI, and advanced disease animal models.

In any era, medical professionals can accomplish their duties only when they can catch up with such advancement of medicine. So far, at Tokyo Women’ s Medical University, excellent predecessors have given education through the meticulous and high-quality education program. However, people who have only excellent academic achievements and do not have refined personality or profound cultural understanding cannot cope with the current clinical practice characterized by diversity and speed. Therefore, we try to incorporate education placing great emphasis on personality refinement in our educational program. We intend to develop human resources who can overcome hurdles in interacting various with people around them such as hierarchical relationship, and establish open-minded relationship with others regardless of whether they are medical professionals or not, with the ultimate goal (outcome) being the establishment of trustful relationship. Tokyo Women’ s Medical University is the only medical university accepting only women in Japan. Published results of public health science researches have indicated that female physicians are superior to male physicians in terms of certain indices. In Japan, female physician account for only about 20%, which is much lower than the ratios in any other countries. Despite that backdrop, TWMU has contributed to the society by producing a lot of female physicians. We would like to promote learning and educational opportunities through which our students would realize their personal career design to cope with various life events and would eventually become medical professionals not only with advanced knowledge but also a rich sense of humanity and respectful attitude.

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