Revitalization of community by residents' activity for education and regional medicine

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Possibility of revitalization of a community through activities of residents for education and regional medicine was investigated by action-research in which both people in a research site and researchers were involved in collaborative practice to produce a new example. It was also examined how traditional educational and medical institution that was characterized by dependence on a closed occupational organization like a school or a clinic could be transformed to a new institution in which residents' participation constitutes an integral part, using activity theory proposed by Y.Engestrom.A group of residents in Neyagawa city, Osaka, Japan, who have provided elementary school children with education on every Saturday on which there has been no school since 2002 was focused on as a practice for educational activity by residents while a local community named Onogo in Kyoto city, Japan, in which it has been attempted by residents to establish and run a medical clinic was focused on as an activity for regional medicine by residents. From the former, it was indicated that the activity there, that was characterized by adherence to a school as a place for the activity in spite of availability of other facilities, challenged a current exclusive nature of school and also provided an opportunity to restore educational function among people in a community. From the latter, it was suggested that an idea of `a clinic established and run by residents' was hardly intelligible due to a widely spread notion that medical service which a doctor provides for a patient (or a resident), who trusts the doctor and follows his/her instructions, taking physical and psychological needs of the patient into consideration is a good practice even if the two is not on an equal footing.