When the rumblings in Hawai‘i got started, and they got going on a two-year program, then they chose a dean. The dean was Windsor Cutting from Stanford and, you know, he was big time. So he asked me to be the professor chairman of surgery and I turned it down the first time because I could see what UW [University of Washington] faced and I could see what the problems we were going to have here. But he came after me. He said, “No, we’re going to be a four-year medical school and we’re going to have a hospital.” I said, “Where are you going to get a hospital?” He said, “I’m going to make Liai Hospital, which was a tuberculosis center into an acute care hospital.” So I joined him on the faculty and we started a medical school. We started a two-year medical school, went on to a four-year. But I could see we were not going to have a hospital. So then I found more fun doing cardiac surgery. So that’s how I started.
Date: May 30, 2006
Location: Hawai‘i, US
Interviewer: Akemi Kikumura Yano
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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