Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 14, Number 6, 1 Iune 1997 — A tribute to Dr. Satya Pal Sood [ARTICLE]

A tribute to Dr. Satya Pal Sood

Alone at 3 a.m., I write this tribute; my laptop computer has become the means through whieh I bear the heart-wrench-ing loss of a man who shaped the course of my life. Dr. Satya Pal Sood, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo has died. As my mentor, Dr. Sood gave me the tooIs and values that I have used for nearly thirty years: discipline for academic and elinieal mastery; skills for scientific query; courage to defy prejudice and overcome injustice; compassion for the disadvantaged and needy; faith to transform the impossible into the probable; and tenacity to transform the probable, into the inevitable. His mentoring resulted in my getting into medical school in 1977 and reahzing my dream of becoming a physician. In 1997, as professor and Chairman of the John A. Burns School of Medieine Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Native Hawaiian Mental Health Research Program, I still Iive by Dr. Sood's teachings.

1 am one of hundreds of students Dr. Sood taught, mentored, and inspired as Director of UH-Hilo's Nahonal Institutes of Health Biomedical Research Program, whose purpose was to develop minority researchers and increase the numbers of minorities in health Care professions. Many of us were native Hawaiians who were educated in schooIs where teachers and counselors told us, "You can't be a doctor...you're Hawaiian..Hawaiians usually don't go to eollege." It's difficult to imagine that not long ago being native Hawaiian was an acceptable criterion for overt institutional racism; native Hawaiians were subject to an insidious erosion of their self-esteem and their belief that they had the ability to reahze their potential. We eame to UH-Hilo with just sparks of hope to ward off the darkness of self-doubt and prejudice. Satya Sood nurtured the spark within eaeh of us, through simple acts of kindness (e.g., regular dinners and scholarly discussions at

his home where his family welcomed us as part of their lives) until we had a strong flame burning within, whieh sustained us through our course of study. The life work of this simple, modest and brilliant man was to enable us to become full members in the great healing fraternity; we were his treasures and he measured his wealth by our successes. I know that over O'ahu and Hilo there will be a heavy rain within 24 hours of his death. For his priceless gift of giving our ancestors and gods who permeate nature will weep for what we have lost; I remember the words of my kūpuna (ancestors), Ke ho'omaka nei kēiā lā, me ka uwē o ka 'ālewa, no ka mea ua 'ike ka hōnua, i ka ha'alele 'ana o kekahi 'uhane manomano — this day begins with a sky that weeps because the Earth has felt the passing of a great soul. By Naleen N. Andrade, M.D. University of Hawai'i