Here are some differences between Japanese OR and this country's OR.
1. The environment is less hostile. Maybe because of shorter working hours and a variery of occupations in OR. For instance, respiratory therapists can set-up OR everyday and they can assist anesthetists at induction/tube-exchange/extubation.
2. Fee for service. In Japan, it does not make any difference to your paycheck how many cases you do in a day. But here in this country, the more you work, the more you get. The only caveat is that this rule applies only to physicians, not the rest of the OR staff.
3. Most of the patients come to the hospital on the day of surgery. In case the first case of the day gets longer, we can cancel the following cases because the patients are not in the hospital yet.