Born in Scotland but receiving his undergraduate education from the University of Pennsylvania, Patrick Barron came to Japan at the end of the 1960s to study Japanese. After completing his 4 years of study of Japanese at the International Christian University , Professor Barron entered the Ph.D. program of the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies where he completed his Ph.D. course ABD. Returning to Japan after his studies, he became increasingly involved in English for Medical Purposes. After meeting Professor Yoshihiro Hayata of the First Department of Surgery of Tokyo Medical University in 1970, Professor Barron maintained strong links with that institution and by extension to other areas of the Japanese medical world for the past three and a half decades.
Patrick Barron first proposed the idea of a communications center for a medical school in 1975. In 1980, he was invited to be Associate Professor of St. Marianna University School of Medicine where he taught English focused on English for Medical Purposes. In 1991, however, he left St. Marianna and soon afterwards assumed the post of Professor at Tokyo Medical University, directing the International Medical Communications Center there. Based on his experience with tens of thousands of papers or presentations and abstracts over the past 35 years, Patrick Barron has pioneered the idea of medical communications centers, and of in-house support for medical writing and the flow of the information from inside of the country to outside. The International Medical Communications Center of Tokyo Medical University is the first of its kind in any medical school in Japan, primarily devoted to generating information from inside the institution and transmitting it to the international community. A committed educator, Professor Barron, with Associate Professor Raoul Breugelmans and the rest of the staff of the International Medical Communications Center, promotes English for Medical Purposes education throughout Japan, advocates the adoption of standards for testing ability in English for Medical Purposes among graduates of Japan 's medical schools. Through the publication of international standards and textbooks, the Center is working towards a standardized curriculum to globalize English for Medical Purposes education throughout the world.
Patrick Barron is an editor or an editorial consultant for a wide range of journals including the Journal of Gastroenterology, Breast Cancer, the Journal of Bronchology, Respirology, Byori to Rinsho (pathology and clinical medicine), Haigan (lung cancer), the Journal of the Japanese Society for Respiratory Tract Endoscopy, Allergology International, the Journal of Cardiac Surgery, the Journal of the Japanese Society for Geriatrics among others. He is Secretary General of the World Association for Bronchology, Vice President of the World Bronchology Federation, Secretary General of the International Photodynamic Association which he helped to found, Vice Chairman of the Board of the Japanese Society for Medical English Education, founder of the Medical Interpreters and Translators Association, and also helped in founding the Medical English Communication to Research Association, of which he is also Secretary General. A consultant for the International Society for Diseases of the Esophagus for 25 years since its founding, he still acts in an advisory capacity. He is also Consultant to the International College of Surgeons Japan Chapter and is ex officio member of the Executive Committee of the Asian Pacific Society for Respirology. He is Director of several other societies including the Japanese Society for Travel Medicine.
He lectures widely on medical communications in Europe, North America, China and Korea and has to his credit over 100 invited lectures throughout Japan . He has also co-edited with Brian Harrison, Hiromi Kobayashi and Eiko Harrison the three-book series Igaku Eigo Communications, which serves as a general guide for all Japanese health care researchers and investigators seeking to develop their career through communications in English.