Physical Therapy Program welcomes Yamagata Prefectural University
(Sept. 15, 2008) The University of Colorado Denver Physical Therapy Program hosted a group of physical therapy students and faculty from Japan’s Yamagata Prefectural University this 
past week. This has been an annual event for the past eight years. The group from Japan arrived on Thursday, Sept. 4, and toured the campus, attended lab classes with our students, visited the anatomy lab, participated in a lecture from Vic Spitzer, MD, about the “Visible Human” project, dropped in on the Center for Gait and Movement Analysis at Children’s Hospital, and observed the basics of performing knee arthroscopy on a virtual surgery simulator.
The group also participated in clinic tours at University of Colorado Hospital in-patient and out-patient physical therapy units. The stay included a visit to the CU-Boulder Campus and the Wardenburg Health Center Physical Therapy clinic before enjoying a bike ride and hike in Boulder Canyon in the afternoon.
The physical therapy students treated their Yamagata student guests to a Rockies baseball game and a “homestay,” so the visitors had the opportunity to experience a bit of life in America. For many of the Japanese students, it was their first trip to the United States. The opportunity to stay overnight and experience life in the home of our PT students has always been one of the highlights of their visit.
The visit concluded on Tuesday, Sept. 9, with the eighth annual USA and Japan Health Sciences Congress, featuring poster presentations of current research and scholarly work being conducted by our faculty and the Yamagata faculty.
Photo: Corey Christensen, PT, PHD from the UC Denver PT program, at left, and Jun Kumagai, MD, PhD from the Yamagata PT program, at right, talk with students at the poster presentations.