Iryu 4 Team Medical Dragon

Official Website
www.fujitv.co.jp/iryu4

Broadcast
Thursdays, 10.00 – 10.54 p.m. from 9 January 2014

Station
Fuji TV

Story
Asada Ryutaro is a member of MSAP, a medical humanitarian aid mission, at a war-torn region in some country. One day, there is an explosion behind Asada as he arrives at a field hospital and a youth sustains a serious injury. He steps in to operate despite the lack of medical instruments. Management consultant Okamura Tadashi places a phone call to a man who is present at the International Committee on Medical Care, a gathering of bureaucrats of Japan’s ministries and agencies as well as heads of various corporations, to clinch a big deal overseas. Big corporations and trading companies are buying out hospitals overseas or are building new hospitals to get into foreign countries in an attempt to earn foreign money through healthcare for wealthy individuals. On the other hand in Japan, the administration of mid-sized hospitals which shoulder medical treatment for the rural areas is badly off. This is compounded by the shortage of doctors. The successive closure of the most essential hospitals to patients make many people anxious. At L&P Hospital, Kihara Takehiko, the head of the department of surgery, is giving a commentary on the hospital to a large group of housemen including Hayakawa Shogo, and proudly introduces the spectacular advanced medical facilities. On the other hand, the ageing Sakurai General Hospital is in the same district but no housemen have come. Its only doctor is the hospital director, Sakurai Shuzo. The outflow of patients has also been inevitable and the nurses regard the hospital’s financial woes with uneasiness. Morimoto, a patient hospitalised for lung trouble, refuses surgery because he has reservations about undergoing a surgery with a low success rate at this hospital. One day, Nakahara, an emergency patient, comes to L&P Hospital’s emergency room. He goes through various tests which are automatically performed and the results are routed to the tablets of Kihara and Okamura. Just after Kihara and the others enter the operating theatre, the phone inside rings. The phone call is from Okamura who instructs Kihara to call the ambulance crew back. Nakahara is told that L&P Hospital refuses to accept him and is returned to the ambulance. The crew are at a loss when Nakahara says that he wants to be sent to Sakurai General Hospital. Sakurai takes the call. Overrides the objections of his nurses, he issues instructions to admit Nakahara. When Nakahara arrives, he is immediately brought to the operating theatre, but there is no treatment for his worsening symptoms. Just as all present are ready to give up, the door to the operating theatre opens and Asada enters … … Asada begins working at Sakurai General Hospital for his former teacher. He visits the other Team Dragon members Kato Akira, Ijuin Noboru, Arase Monji and Fujiyoshi Keisuke who are working at different hospitals. Team Dragon regroups in order to create the ideal hospital and gets into action. But there are numerous obstacles that stand in their way including Okamura, who is trying to promote a project which will provide high quality Japanese medical treatment to India. Japanese doctors are key for him to penetrate the market and he wants to recruit Team Dragon. However, they are not moved by money or prestige. So he tries all sorts of measures in an attempt to win them over.

Characters
Sakaguchi Kenji as Asada Ryutaro
A cardiovascular surgeon with remarkable skills. He always gives his best for the sake of his patients. When he was with a non-governmental organisation, he kept giving a dying youth left behind in a fire a heart massage, and a sustained a large burn on his back in the process. The scar looks as if the figure of a dragon has been etched on his back. He was headhunted by Kato Akira. At Meishin University Hospital, he got together competent doctors that related to his medical treatment and approach to patients and formed Team Dragon. They have pulled off all sorts of difficult surgeries so far.

Inamori Izumi as Kato Akira
A thoracic and cardiac surgery professor at Meishin University Hospital. She sought a professorship and got in touch with Asada Ryutaro to make use of his skills and achieve success for her thesis on Japan’s first Batista surgery. Asada also acknowledged her skills as a doctor. She and Asada are of like minds later on. She has been striving toward advances in medical technology from a patient’s perspective.

Koike Teppei as Ijuin Noboru
A senior doctor at Meishin University Hospital’s Cardiovascular Centre. After meeting Asada Ryutaro, he gained tremendous experience in emergency medical care at a young age and is highly skilled. He also learnt catheter techniques from Kuroki Keijiro who had once regarded Asada as a rival.

Abe Sadao as Arase Monji
The head of the department of anaesthesiology at Eiwakai’s Ouzu Hospital. A gifted anaesthetist who is right about a person’s weight and a patient’s body temperature during surgery just by a glance. However, he feels disgruntled that no surgeon has matched his own skills ever since Asada Ryutaro went overseas.

Sasaki Kuranosuke as Fujiyoshi Keisuke
After being a clinician at Meishin University Hospital’s Cardiovascular Internal Medicine Department, he is now with a national university hospital. He suffers from a congenital heart ailment called the Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, and wears a pacemaker. The daughter he single-handedly raised died of heart disease. He has supreme confidence in the Team Dragon members including Asada Ryutaro, and works at supporting the medical care which is the team’s goal through the field of regenerative medicine research.

Hira Mikijiro as Sakurai Shuzo
Asada Ryutaro’s former teacher and the director of Sakurai General Hospital. He took Asada, who was once forced out of the medical department because of conflict with a professor, into his own hospital and thoroughly drilled him in both the technical and psychological aspects of being a doctor. He believes that a doctor always do his best for the sake of patients, and that a doctor is not a specialist but has to understand the whole body and deal with any kind of illness. However, this scrupulous system is the reason for the hospital’s financial difficulties. He brings in Asada and entrusts him to rebuild the hospital.

Kishibe Ittoku as Noguchi Takeo
The chairman of the Cabinet Secretariat’s International Committee on Medical Care and non-executive director of L&P Hospital. After being the professor of Meishin University Hospital’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Department and then the head of risk management, he became the university’s president. However, he lost ambition in the university organisation and turned into a medical care commentator. He is now the chairman of a government consultative body looking to internationalise and industrialise medical care. Its first project is to make a success of the foray into India which L&P Hospital is planning.

Natsuki Mari as Kitou Shoko
After she went from professor of Meishin University Hospital’s Emergency Medical Care Department to hospital director, she also assumed the post of university president but was dismissed because of Noguchi Takeo’s plot. She went to the US and comes face to face with current medical practices in the emergency room. Her ability to instantly spring into action shows no sign of flagging. Because she is fully aware that her nemesis Noguchi is around to strengthen L&P Hospital’s ER, she suddenly returns to Japan again, but … …

Ikeda Tetsuhiro as Kihara Takehiko
Although he was invited to L&P Hospital as the head of the Surgery Department, the purpose is for him to spy on Team Dragon. He is a figurehead as a doctor. He is a coward and has weak authority, but he identifies himself a Team Dragon supporter, and feels sympathy for Asada Ryutaro and the rest.

Takahashi Katsunori as Okamura Tadashi
A management consultant chosen as one of the world’s 100 influential businessmen in connection with the many hospitals he rehabilitated in the US. He has been entrusted with a controlling interest in L&P Hospital. He teams up with Noguchi Takeo, the chairman of the government consultative body and plans a project which will provide high quality Japanese medical treatment to India. Japanese medical staff are key for him to penetrate the market and he wants to recruit Team Dragon. However, they are not moved by money or prestige. So he takes a conciliatory approach and makes an offer of financial and human resource assistance to Sakurai General Hospital. His medical knowledge is on par with doctors, but his past is full of mystery.

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