Tokushima Medical School of Medicine was founded in July, 1948 and the Department of Surgery was established by Professor Hiroshi Takebayashi in July, 1949.He was a pioneer of functional Neurosurgery and has devised an operative treatment of involuntary movement "T-Tomie"(T signifies Takebayashi).

Professor Yoshio Hashimoto, who was an associate professor at Taihoku (Taipei) Imperial University and returned to Japan just after the end of the war assumed the second generation Professor in August, 1949. He gave the lectures on surgery in general in addition to orthopedic surgery and neurosurgery. In particular, he had a reputation for his lectures on Burger's disease in Vascular Surgery. Also, he had brilliant accomplishments in angiography in connection with Vascular Surgery.

The third generation Professor Syuhei Takita was installed in 1954. He had a lot of research achievements in the gastrointestinal movement such as ileus, intestinal adhesion and others, the physiology of smooth muscle and so on. The department dealt with a wide range of fields such as cardio surgery and neurosurgery and had accumulated various research developments on cardiac fibrillation, hypothermia, brain injury and so on. Also, he introduced vagotomy as a surgical treatment for peptic ulcers and took the lead in researches within this field.

The Second Department of Surgery was established in the same year and the department of surgery, which was established in 1949, had perforce to the first department of surgery.

The fourth generation Professor Nobuhiko Komi was installed in 1972.He established Commission on Pancreaticobiliary Maljunction diagnostic criteria (current Japanese Study Group on Pancreaticobiliary Maljunction)and the cases of Pancreaticobiliary Maljunction had been collected nationwide since then. Also, he proposed new Komi classification of Maljunction morphology and undertook the joint study with People's Republic of China. Furthermore, the department carried out studies on surgical metabolism and nutrition management, cancer immunology, cancer chemotherapy and susceptibility, peptic ulcer and vagotomy actively.

The fifth generation Professor Seiki Tashiro was installed in 1994. He introduced Gastroenterological Surgery, to which Vascular Surgery and implant surgery were positively applied. Soon after taking office, he successfully performed operations for hepatoma extended to the right atrium and the inferior vena cava. The following year, in March 1995, he succeeded in living-donor partial liver transplantation for the first time in Shikoku. In the research aspects, he taught immune tolerance in transplantation of the liver, small bowel and pancreatic islet, organ protection and hepatic regeneration in the HBP (Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic) surgery, molecular early diagnosis of hepatic metastasis and lymph node metastasis in gastric cancers.

On April 1,2002,the name of the department changed from "the First Department of Surgery ,the University of Tokushima Faculty of Medicine" to "Digestive and Pediatric Surgery, Diseased Organ and Repair Medicine, the University of Tokushima Faculty of Medicine".

On April 1, 2004, the name of the department changed to "the Department of Digestive and Pediatric Surgery, Institute of Health Biosciences, the University of Tokushima Graduate School", and Professor Mitsuo Shimada was installed. Under the guidance of the new leader, we are working hard in cooperation with one another to make the department a better place to conduct research.