About 3 years have passed since Annals of Gastroenterological Surgery (AGsurg) was first published. The Japanese Society of Gastroenterological Surgery (JSGS), publisher of AGsurg, celebrated its 50th anniversary at the 74th General Meeting of the JSGS last year. As a commemorative project that reflected on the history of the JSGS over the past 50 years, a prominent surgeon in each region in the areas of esophagus, stomach, colon/ rectum, liver, biliary tract, and pancreas, reported about the achievements in their field, including surgical technique and treatment outcome. In this issue, “Progress in the treatment of gastric cancer in Japan over the last 50 years” is published by Professor Sasako as a SPECIAL CONTENT feature. In this paper, the last 50 years have been divided into three eras – before 1990, the 1990s, and the era of evidence, which means after 2000 – and changes of treatments and prognosis from these eras were analyzed by several factors, such as surgery, chemotherapy, informed consent, clinical trials, and others. This is relevant as improvement of prognosis is not due to one factor but several influencing each other. Perhaps this paper is consistent with the factors that improve outcomes for all gastrointestinal cancers, not just gastric cancer. I realized once again that Japan’s successful cancer outcomes, surgical outcome, and surgical techniques are extremely high.1 Unfortunately, it would appear that there have not been many papers published internationally from Japanese authors regarding these points; in other words, we did not communicate our proposals and/or discussions widely, to the world from Japan. This is partly due to the fact that most Japanese surgeons are still not highly proficient in English.In the future, due to globalization and internationalization, it is needless to say that conference presentations, discussion, and debate in English will be very important. As a result, many academic societies are making the use of English available for the future, including English translation services in some cases.But it will take time. Surely, it will take a lot of time.The history of English education has strongly influenced its presence (or lack of) in Japan. Recalling that, during World War II, English was considered an enemy language, and some adults who did not recognize English as universal, even when they were children in elementary school. That is a thing of the past, but it was a time and a trend. Until recently, teachers of Japanese language served as teachers of English. The English teacher at that time was in such a situation that they “they can't even buy a McDonald's hamburger in the US.” It's not a joke.Now, this country is trying to respond to that inadequacy in the university entrance examination system. In addition, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology decided to use a qualification/certification test that has established a certain level of evaluation in order to appropriately assess the four English skills of reading, listening, speaking, and writing. Although it is currently on hold due to various circumstances, this decision will be the right choice in a sense.In any case, future surgeons are strongly reminded that the time has come to speak English in medical conference.No doubt, the time has come for surgeons to work in English.No pleasure for Japanese surgeons?!
DISCLOSURE
Conflict of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interests for this article.