OUNHS established a Health Sciences Master’s major and a Health Sciences PhD course in our Graduate School in 2009 to promote advanced research in non-nurse medical and healthcare professionals. These courses are very unique in universities and colleges of nursing in Japan. They were established for medical doctors, registered dietitians, radiation technologists, pharmacists, medical technologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and health and exercise trainers. The six specialty areas of the Master’s major are Health Physiology; Environmental Health Science; Physical Fitness and Sports Science; Radiological Health Science; Health Informatics and Biostatistics; and Mental Health. Education in the Master’s course is characterized by both day and night instruction, small class sizes, and mentor-group instruction. Two mentors with expertise in the course specialty area supervise student research from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students also receive statistical support and use statistical software such as SPSS, SAS, MATLAB and S-PLUS to process and interpret experimental and survey data.
