Midwifery Master's Course

Midwifery is an independent nursing occupation in Japan. All midwives are educated as nurses and midwives and have licensure as a registered nurse and separate licensure as a midwife. The minimum length of education and training required to receive licensure in Japan is three years for nurses and one year for midwives. There are various midwifery education programs in Japan, such as graduate school Master’s courses; undergraduate courses; undergraduate non-degree programs; undergraduate special courses; junior college non-degree programs; and vocational schools. The current midwifery environment in Japan is characterized by the progression of our declining birthrate, the aging of expectant mothers, a lack of obstetricians, a decrease in parturient facilities, and a concurrent advancement of perinatal medicine and assisted reproductive technology. Therefore, midwives are required to possess advanced diagnostic and practical midwifery skills and the ability to collaborate with other medical professionals including obstetricians.

In our aging Japanese society, the role of nursing colleges and universities in helping to address health and welfare issues is a matter of increasing national importance. From the early 1990s, a number of baccalaureate nursing programs were established in Japan to meet our future health care needs. OUNHS was established as one of them in 1998 by the government of Oita Prefecture with the mission of preparing talented students to be nursing professionals, and advancing nursing and health sciences through creative and relevant research and activities.

Our faculty is focused on education, research, and community service in order to make OUNHS a center of nursing excellence. Our goal is to educate and train highly competent professionals who can cherish and care for people with various needs. We are also striving to strengthen collaborative research and promote international cooperation in the various fields of nursing.

OUNHS has continued to develop and evolve over the course of the past two decades.

In 2002, we founded our graduate school by establishing a Master’s program in Nursing Science. In 2004, we established a Nursing Science Doctoral program. In 2008, we founded the first graduate school course in Japan for educating and training Nurse Practitioners, with majors in geriatric and pediatric primary care. In 2009, we established a Master’s program and a Doctoral program in Health Sciences to enhance the relationship between nursing and the basic sciences.

In 2011, we introduced the first four-year concentrated baccalaureate curriculum in registered nursing in Japan, while moving both our Public Health Nursing program and our Midwife program out of the undergraduate school and establishing them as independent Master’s courses in our graduate school.

In 2015, we introduced a four-year undergraduate clinical practicum in preventive home visits by student teams to older adults residing near our campus. Our goal is to improve their health by providing them with information and guidance on health promotion and preventive care.

In 2018, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of OUNHS with several major events that celebrated the achievements of the past twenty years and announced our goals for the next twenty years.

Our university is located on the top of a high hill with a good view of the surrounding beautiful mountains. The great natural beauty of the area serves to heal our hearts, minds, and bodies.

We wish you a happy and meaningful stay at Oita University of Nursing and Health Sciences.