2021年9月16日

Kurokawa Award (Resident/Fellow Category) Recipient’s Remarks
Yoji Hoshina, U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka

I am extremely honored to receive this prestigious Kurokawa Award at the ACP Japan Chapter Annual Meeting 2021.

The case I presented was “A case of myasthenia gravis after administration of COVID-19 vaccine,” which I experienced during my rotation in the Department of Neurology at the U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka. Myasthenia gravis is known to be triggered and exacerbated by various factors, including infection and medications. In this case, there were no obvious changes in the patient’s daily life before the presentation of symptoms, except for the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine. Although we cannot conclude that the vaccination was related to the exacerbation of his symptoms, I thought discussing and presenting this case would lead to the “activation of the academic mind,” which is the annual meeting theme. The difficult part of the discussion was that there were no identical cases in the past, so we had to hypothesize based on similar cases and the mechanism of vaccine and COVID-19 infection. I could not have done it without Dr. Baker and Dr. Sowers, who have supported me. I would like to thank Dr. Baker and Dr. Sowers from the bottom of my heart.

Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the staff at Chiba University Department of General Medicine, where I spent time before going to Yokosuka, for encouraging me to pursue my interest in an academic area. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the people involved in the ACP Japan Chapter Meeting, who decided to hold the meeting virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic and worked hard until the end.