[One-year experience of Men's Outpatient Health Care Unit without specifying the category of disease].

The Men's Outpatient Health Care Unit was established in April 2006 in Kyoto City Hospital. In this outpatient unit, medical services are provided to males of all ages and with any category of complaints. For patients' privacy, the unit is situated on a different floor from the other outpatient ward, and all-male staff handles from reservation to examination. Furthermore, each patient is given 30 minutes to provide enough time for counseling and examination. To our knowledge, this system was established for the first time in Japan. During the first one year, a total of 106 new patients visited this ward with a large variety of chief complaints : sexual dysfunction, urinary disorder, consultation for aging male, consultation for size and shape of the penis, and so forth. Over 25% of patients disinclined against visiting the conventional urological ward. Furthermore, over 25% of patients revealed that they were hesitant to see female staffs including clerks and nurses. Although more facilities in Japan are recently providing gender-specific medical services, most of them are directed to the female gender. Our experience of this health care system suggested that male-specific gender medicine should become more widespread and cover various categories of diseases.