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The purpose of this paper is to present the differences and similarities in the roles of occupational health nurses (OHNs) between the United States and Japan by reporting the results of interviews with seven OHNs who work at seven industries in the city and the suburbs of San Francisco. Four out of seven OHNs responded that one of their essential roles was "Case Manager", in regard to the prevention of work force reduction and the scaling back of workers' medical expenditures associated with work-related accidents. Only one of them responded that "Health Promotion Specialist" was the leading role, whereas 30% of the Japanese OHNs were engaged in this role, according to the results of a previous study. Similarly to the other roles of the Japanese OHNs, they also consider Clinicians, Managers, and OHS Coordinators as their important roles. Together, the result of interviewing the nurses indicated that the differences in the role delineation of the OHNs between the two countries depend upon their educational system of licensing as well as implementation of their responsibilities to the laws and regulations, including the Occupational Health and Safety Act, health examination of the OSHA Standard and employment of occupational medical doctors, medical insurance and compensation for workmen's accidents, etc. Furthermore, this visiting opportunity gave the authors suggestions for the advancement of educational programs to reinforce the professional activities of occupational health nursing in Japan.

As industries' structures have evolved and diversified recently, the framework of occupational health nursing has been expanded on multidisciplinary bases. On the occasion of the opening of the School of Health Sciences, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan (UOEH), the author was given an opportunity to visit US administrations, academic institutions and some industries to investigate occupational medicine and health nursing in that country. And as the author took part in programming the 17th UOEH International Symposium on Occupational Health Nursing Expertise that took place at the campus of the University in October, 1997, these two events are reported in this paper. The first part of the report is on the visit to the US occupational health professionals including occupational health doctors, nurses, industrial hygienists and other staffs. They have perceived that there has never been more emphasis placed on the significance of occupational health services than in recent years, and that young students have become more interested in occupational health. The second report will be on the 17th UOEH International Symposium--Occupational Health Nursing Expertise--the next time.

During the past ten years bioethics has gradually become an important subject for discussion in Japan. However these discussions are quite different from those in the United States where bioethics has been a major field of study for some time. The purpose of this paper is to show the differences between the Japanese and American ideas regarding bioethics by studying the social environment in the United States. When compared to Japan, there is a great difference in this environment and the American views on ethics. Japanese studying bioethical problems should study them by first comparing the points of differences stated in this paper and then applying their conclusions to the bioethical problems here in Japan.