The European Spinal Surgery Annual Meeting is, in fact, the world's academic feast of spinal surgery, with over six thousand doctors from around the globe gathering together.
Among the Japanese doctors who came to attend were Fujiwara Masao from Tokyo University Medical Department's affiliated hospital, along with Takahashi, Sasaki, and Mitsui who followed Fujiwara.
Kobayashi Takeshi from Juntendo Hospital in Japan, being one of the leading figures in Japanese spinal surgery, also brought several doctors to the conference, as did the team from the spinal surgery experts at Keio University Hospital, led by Yoshiichi Yoshimura.
Of course, other Japanese hospitals sent doctors to participate as well, but compared to Tokyo University Affiliated Hospital and Juntendo Hospital, their presence at this academic conference was somewhat more like that of minor characters.