Partnership for Women's Health

Partnership Participates in U.S.-Japan Joint Medical Symposium

Dr. Legato delivers her keynote address

JAPAN – Dec. 2, 2001 – The Partnership for Women’s Health at Columbia University participated in the first symposium on gender-specific medicine held in Japan. The symposium celebrated the110th anniversary of the Center for Health Care and Public Concern and focused on Gender and Health in the 21st Century. It was the first conference of its kind to spotlight gender as an issue in health care.

Dr. Marianne Legato, founder and director of the Partnership for Women’s Health, traveled to Tokyo and led an American delegation to the two-day conference. Her keynote address, “Women’s Health Update: Sharing for Better Practice,” opened the proceedings.

“It was incredibly exciting to me to introduce the new specialty of gender-specific medicine to the people of Japan,” said Dr. Legato. “The enthusiasm and understanding the audience displayed was remarkable. I feel strongly that this is going to change the way that many Japanese doctors practice medicine.”


Linda Willet, Christiana Killian, Dr. Legato, and Mitsuko Shimumora at the conference	Dr. Legato participates in a panel discussion during the conference	The conference was attended by more than 1,300 people

Mitsuko Shimomura, president and CEO of the Center for Health Care and Public Concern, sponsors of the conference, stated: “One person was so moved that she started to weep. There were some men in the audience who were shocked and confessed that they would better understand their wives and women [after attending the conference].” In all, more than 1,300 people attended the conference.

Accompanying Dr. Legato were colleagues Dr. Phillip Sarrel, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine; Linda Willet, vice president and deputy general counsel of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s legal division; and Dr. Linda Bockenstedt, associate professor of medicine in rheumatology at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Sarrel gave a speech on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) as an option for treating menopause while Dr. Bockenstedt spoke about autoimmune diseases. Ms. Willet introduced a panel discussion on What We Hope for Women’s Health in the New Century, focusing on gender- specific health issues as seen in U.S. litigation.

Following the conference in Tokyo, Dr. Legato traveled with Mitsuko Shimomura to Kyoto and Osaka, where she continued to meet with health care providers and discuss the practice of gender-specific medicine.

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