A year in Glasgow: research, collaboration and academic general practice
Published: 6 October 2026
Dr Takayuki Ando came to Glasgow in autumn 2025 for a one-year research fellowship in General Practice and Primary Care (GPPC). As an academic GP at Keio University in Tokyo, he was interested in how academic general practice has become an established discipline here, while it is still developing in Japan.
My main research focused on the early development of multimorbidity. Working with colleagues in Glasgow and collaborators in Denmark and Japan, we compared national-scale data from the three countries to examine how the earliest long-term conditions people develop are associated with later multimorbidity and mortality.
I also joined related projects within the group and supervised MPH and medical student research. Access to high-quality datasets through collaboration across the School opened up new questions, and I greatly valued the regular supervision I received from Professor Bhautesh Jani, who was both supportive and flexible, and connected me with international collaborators.
The fellowship also gave me the chance to see academic general practice beyond research alone. I visited GP practices with members of the team, learned about the undergraduate curriculum, observed the orientation for GP placements, and saw how OSCEs are organised and delivered - all useful points of comparison with medical education at Keio.
Over the year, I began to see some of what lies behind that difference. Part of it is structural. Fellowships and clinical academic posts make it possible for GPs to combine research or teaching with clinical work, and the routes into those roles are visible and established. But I was also struck by how multidisciplinary the environment is. Academic general practice here is not confined to GPs alone: epidemiologists, social scientists and environmental health researchers work closely alongside clinicians, broadening both the methods used and the questions being asked. In Japan, by contrast, clinicians interested in academic work often have to create their own time and networks much more independently.
Another aspect I valued was the School’s approach to community engagement. Through activities at the Byres Community Hub, I saw how working with local communities can be treated as part of academic work itself, rather than as something separate.
I am grateful, too, for the welcome I received at the School. Colleagues were consistently friendly, approachable and generous with their time, which made it easy to settle into a new academic and cultural environment.
Most importantly, I hope the relationships built this year will continue. I see the fellowship not as the end of a one-year visit, but as the beginning of a longer-term collaboration between Glasgow, Keio and our international partners.
First published: 6 October 2026
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