Official Website
www.fujitv.co.jp/kyumei24
Broadcast
Tuesdays, 9.00 p.m. – 9.54 p.m. from 9 July 2013
Station
Fuji TV
Story
It is one month after Kojima Kaede assumed the position as chief medical officer of the emergency and critical care centre at the government-run Minato University Hospital. Kaede performs her job with dispassionate precision, but her relationship with the medical staff is awkward because she does not let other people get close to her. The reason why hospital director Mogami Toru made Kaede the chief medical officer is also unclear. One day, Kaede is summoned by Mogami. After the diagnosis of a patient’s brain death on this day, the family had appealed to stop the organ donation which was then called off. The head of the emergency and critical care centre, Sugiyoshi Yasuhiro, who has been waiting for Kaede with Mogami, feels it is a problem to be blamed on the persuasion of the family. Kaede replies that she has no particular issue with the remarks of her staff. Then, Mogami tells Kaede that he has offered a position at the centre to a doctor known as an organ donor specialist. The doctor Mogami invited is called Natsume Mamoru. Minato University Hospital’s management is frustrated with the emergency and critical care centre for not having a single organ donor since the organ transplant act was amended. Many people are stabbed in Tokyo and an explosion occurs at the same time. The emergency and critical care centre is inundated with the injured who were immediately brought to the hospital. However, the doctors are uncoordinated because they do not communicate. Kaede insists that they cooperate, but Honjo Masaharu brushes her off while Ando Naotoshi requests to leave early due to ill health. Kaede allows him to go back and declares that he need not come after tomorrow if he still does not feel good. Then, a victim involved in the stabbing incident is brought to the hospital according to his wishes … …
Characters
Matsushima Nanako as Kojima Kaede
An emergency doctor. The chief medical officer of Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre. At Kainan University Hospital’s Advanced Emergency and Critical Care Centre four years ago, the number of staff was increased and a well-developed medical care system was put in place under her term as its young chief medical officer. Just as it was decided that she was to join an emergency medical care reform committee under the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare because of these achievements, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred. Because she was the chief medical officer, she could not go to the quake-hit zone and had to wait at Haneda Airport for patients to be brought from those areas. However, patients could hardly be transported. Watching the ever increasing number of dead from television footage, made her realise her powerlessness as an emergency doctor. In October 2012, a 24-hour emergency and critical care centre equipped with all ER departments was created at Minato University Hospital as the cornerstone of Tokyo’s critical care reforms. Front-line emergency specialists from across the country were gathered, and the centre was to be the model for the most advanced emergency medical care. She accepted the invitation of hospital director Mogami Toru and was received as its chief medical officer. However, in a state-run university hospital where the old-fashioned attitude that “medical care is specialised research”, the hastily-formed emergency and critical care centre comes under intense pressure from the other departments Furthermore, because there are staff who do not appreciate that an outsider like her was scouted to be the centre’s chief medical officer, Kaede herself becomes concerned about her own position … … Mogami, who wants organ donations in order to maintain the Minato University Hospital’s position, decides to bring Natsume Mamoru on board. She is torn between two conflicting jobs “save a life” and “palliative care for a life”, but gradually finds out the answer through her encounters with Natsume … …
Sasaki Kuranosuke as Honjo Masaharu
An emergency doctor at Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre. He champions heart surgery. “An emergency doctor recognising brain death, is the same as admitting defeat.” He is given a cold shoulder by the people around him, but he is completely unconcerned. He came to America during his housemanship because he could not adapt to fiefdoms rampant in Japanese university hospitals. He started his career as an errand boy for ER with his cheerfulness, perseverance and spunk. He had the potential to work his way up the ranks, but became a victim of his short temper. He was treated as a burden there, and eventually faced the bitter fate of coming back to Japan. He was virtually the leader in Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre before Kojima Kaede came, but has a tendency to clash with her over personnel management and education policies for the young doctors nowadays. He loves alcohol nearly as much as his job. However, he will rush for the emergency calls no matter how much he drinks. He is a doting father of four children with his wife, a former nurse. Family life is happy. His perception that “cardiac death is a person’s death” is greatly shaken by Natsume Mamoru who has been invited to Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre, and he is faced with doubts about his own beliefs regarding critical care.
Tokito Saburo as Natsume Mamoru
An emergency doctor at Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre. He champions neurosurgery. He has a serious personality, but he is poor at asserting himself and is not the type who will express his thoughts so he tends to be considered an eccentric. Because he is a sharp and capable person who views the people and situations around him dispassionately, and on occasion gets to the point without hesitation, he often comes across as superficially polite. He actively undertook lifesaving measures with the use of a percutaneous cardiopulmonary support device, the emergency and critical care centre he previously worked at led the country with the highest percentage of lives saved. But because he believes the critical care role is to be there for patients and their families right to the end of life, and the palliative care for the sick which the hospital provides, it was natural that there would be many brain dead organ transplant donors. Half a year before he moved to Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre, he suddenly resigned from the Hokuriku hospital where he had been working and disappeared from the critical care scene. He gets an offer from Minato University Hospital’s director Mogami Toru who wants him to be the backbone of the hospital as its organ donation specialist. Although he had firmly declined Mogami once, he accepts his request for personal reasons.
Kazama Shunsuke as Hirose Itsuki
An trainee doctor in the later stage of housemanship at Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre. He advocates respiratory surgery. He volunteered for the emergency and critical care centre with expectant hope. He is not the “generation with breathing space”, but he resents being lumped together in one way or another. His strengths are his speed at responding to requests for a rapid response car. Because he approaches his work with a positive attitude and takes on many challenges, he gets involved in areas that go beyond his position as a trainee doctor in some instances. His greatest weaknesses are his lack of applied skills despite his earnestness, and his inflexibility. He will quickly be at his wits end over the slightest emergency. He adopts a somewhat withdrawn attitude in response to the pressure on the kind-hearted Kojima Kaede from Honjo Masaharu and the other medical staff.
Ashina Sei as Nara Sayaka
An trainee doctor in the later stage of housemanship at Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre. She champions gastroenterological surgery. She is usually calm and assured in her work, and she has the trust of her superiors. As a fellow female, she respects Kojima Kaede who is living up to her name as an emergency doctor. She was the first to raise her hand after hearing about the newly established emergency and critical care centre at Minato University Hospital because she also knew that Kaede had been called to be the chief medical officer. She is hung up about winning, and is in fact unhappy about being compared to Hirose Itsuki who is of the same generation. She tries not to show it to the people around her, but she agonises over the sense that it is not because of her gender that she cannot possibly be the best doctor. She is a hardworking person behind the scenes. She has a lot of experience in love, but many of her relationships are short-lived. Privacy is important to her.
Kashiwabara Shuji as Kataoka Hitoshi
An emergency doctor at Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre. He advocates cosmetic surgery. His father is the chairman of a university hospital’s board. He grew as the only child of the Kataoka family. His childhood was spent reading the face of his autocratic father so he detests quarrels, loves moderation and always ends up searching for common ground. He is the most well-informed person in the emergency and critical care centre due to his love of gossip. Because he treats everyone kindly, females, especially patients are easily charmed. He has been divorced twice and is now in the process of a third divorce settlement.
Ito Yuko as Nagai Eiko
An organ transplant coordinator. She is the person who will come to a hospital and provide an explanation in the event that a patient brought to the emergency and critical care centre suffers brain death, and the family wishes to hear about organ transplant. She does not openly approve of the ambition of Minato University Hospital’s director to achieve results in organ donation, but believes that this is necessary to permit the development of medical transplants of the future.
Tezuka Toru as Sugiyoshi Yasuhiro
The head of Minato University Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Centre. He is also the professor of the Department of Neurosurgery. Because it is the typical professorship in a national university, he took his present post because of the number of dissertations rather than clinical training. Since he is the type who will go along with the powerful, he always sticks to the hospital director Mogami Toru. With the establishment of the new emergency and critical care centre, concurrently serves as its director, but he has little knowledge of emergency and critical care, and only appears when problems occur. On the other hand, he has great pride as the professor of the Department of Neurosurgery, and has made up his mind to come in to pronounce brain death for the first organ donation case.
Danta Yasunori as Mogami Toru
The professor of the Department of Surgery and the director of Minato University Hospital. He specialises in surgery. His skills as a doctor are also first class, while no one comes close to his political clout in the hospital. He deftly capitalises on alma mater, family relations and pedigree, and is also a careful strategist. He is good at praise and deception. Taking advantage of the national university hospital system which places great importance on research more than clinical training, he climbed up to be a hospital director through his sheer number of dissertations. To go with the times, he creates an emergency and critical care centre at Minato University Hospital which has not had an ER department in many years, and headhunts Kojima Kaede to be its chief medical officer. He is aware that anyone working in this hastily created workplace will wear out. However, he also knows that Kaede who is becoming famous as a female emergency doctor can be exploited as its poster girl and goes ahead to appoint her. He thinks to wait and see for a while, and at the same time, takes pleasure deep down watching Kaede suffer.
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