Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 27, Number 6, 1 June 2010 — Medical school graduates record number of Hawaiians [ARTICLE]

Medical school graduates record number of Hawaiians

New kauka honored in kīhei ceremony

By Lisa Asato

Thirteen Native Hawaiians made history in May at the University of Hawai'i John A. Burns School of Medicine as the most Hawaiians to graduate in a single class - that's three times the number of Native Hawaiians in the school's first graduating class in 1975.

Calling it an "evolution of where we've eome with our culture in the last 30 years," Dr. Nathan Wong, a member of the first graduating class of four Native Hawaiians, said the young doctors were special in their sheer numbers, but also in their achievements in learning that have grown so mueh over a generation. "What you have here is something that is an epitome of what we've been able to create in our communities," said Wong, president of 'Ahahui o Nā Kauka, the Association of Native Hawaiian Physicians. The klhei ceremony at the UH-Mānoa Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies followed an earlier eommeneement ceremony for graduate students at Stan Sherriff Center, prompting Dr. Dee-Ann Carpenter to note, "I dare say as of half an hour ago, you are no longer haumāna (students), although since you stepped into medicine you will be haumāna forever." Dr. Marjorie Mau, founding chair of the school's Native Hawaiian Health Department, couldn't attend the May 15 ceremony, but said in a letter that she could remember the happiness the class felt years before knowing that not just one or two students - but 13 - had been accepted into the medical school. In a letter read by Dr. Kalani Brady, the department's interim chair, she told the new doctors that they would face "the trials and tribulations of knowing how best to use your unique skills to make a difference." But "as a Kanaka Maoli,

we know you will take this kuleana to heart and that you have a special mana, an innate power, to do more than you could imagine," she said. "Sometimes it will be overwhelming, sometimes exhilarating and other times desperate. I hope that as you go through this journey that you remember this day and all these people here who are wishing you well." One by one, a kauka, or doctor, tied a klhei on eaeh graduate, sym-

bolizing a "connection to our culture and the people that gave it to us,"

See GRADUATES on page II

> Timothy Kawika Au, internal meelieine, UH > Nālani Gauen, pediatrics, Tripler Army Medical Center > Kimberly Gerard, surgery, University of Arizona Affiliated Hospital > Marcus Kawika Iwane, internal medicine, UH > Christian Kikuehi, surgery, Hospital of University of Pennsylvania > Natalie Kēhau Kong, family medicine, Phoenix Baptist Hospital >Jordan Lee, internal medicine, Scripps Mercy Hospital > Kapua Medeiros, family medicine, UH >Andrew Middleton, neurosurgery, Jackson Memorial Hospital > Heather Miner, family medieine, Ventura County Medical Center > Kawika Mortensen, to be determined > Andrew Keola Richardson, orthopedic surgery, Duke University Medical Center > Joshua Santos, internal medicine, UCLAMedical Center

graduate Kapua Medeiros of Anahola, Kaua'i, said after the ceremony. Medeiros, whose klhei was tied by her cousin Dr. Elizabeth Tam, said the feeling of having four years of medi-

eal school behind her was "unreal." "To be called doctor is very foreign," said Medeiros, who along with fellow graduate Kēhau Kong of Waimānalo, O'ahu, was featured on the cover of Ka Wai Ola in December 2007, when both were second-year medical students. The graduates personalized their klhei using design elements of kukui, symbolizing enlightenment, and 'ōhi'a lehua, symbolizing healing and rebirth after devastation. "As we transition from a haumāna to kauka, we look to the kukui to provide us light and guidance," Kong told the gathering. The kukui is also a symbol of Ka Lama Kukui, the indigenous medical student interest group that Kong helped found, whieh strives to give back to the community through health screening and other activities. Graduate Marcus Kawika Iwane of Moloka'i said Hawaiians suffer from a high prevalence of chronic illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancers. "As kauka," he said, "we now have an opportunity to ho'ōla, whieh is to take part in a cycle of rebirth and to help Hawaiians recover from this mass devastation." Iwane's kīhei was tied by fellow Moloka'i native Dr. Emmett Aluli, who llew in for the event. Aluli, one of the original graduates in 1975, along with Wong, Bill Ahuna and Solomon Nalua'i, told the young doctors that back then, "I knew about eight other Hawaiian physicians in the community and two was my uncles. Mueh has changed, he said, calling the occasion "a proud moment" for the kauka, medical school, department and families. "I learned eouple things in my career," he said. "The heahh of the land is the heahh of our people and the heahh of our nation." ■

GRADUAĪE3 Continued from page 05