Kaoru Shima

was a Japanese physician. He was the first director of the rebuilt Shima Hospital, located at the hypocenter of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He is known as the "father of the Hiroshima Surgical Society".

Early life and education Kaoru Shima was born in Aki District at 1897. He graduated from Hiroshima Kokutaiji High School in 1917. Other graduates in the same year included Tadanori Nagayama and Shizuo Miyama.

Shima entered Osaka Medical College in 1924. He then continued to study and train in Germany and the United States. Kaoru Shima applied the rational hospital management concepts he learned in the United States, resulting in Shima Hospital's popularity as an inexpensive clinic with a high standard of treatment. Since there were few outpatient surgical clinics in the city center at the time, Shima Hospital received many patients, and the hospital rooms were always almost full. The hospital did not turn away patients who could not pay for medical care, and on one occasion they even sent vegetables as a token of appreciation. He supported and played a central role in the movement to establish the .