This website was created with the help of my family, friends, and classmates, with the goal of strengthening the Japanese-American relationship. Medical school prepares us for dealing with illnesses, but it is the relationships that we build along the way that help shape our personal growth and contributions back to society. My experiences in medical school have reinforced that medicine is a collaborative effort; it is a field that discriminates against no one, and is continuously bringing people closer together under an umbrella of hope. It is a powerful tool to learn more about ourselves as well as to help address and overcome cultural barriers. My contribution toward strengthening the Japanese-American relationship focuses on this very idea of advancing personal and professional medical goals through collaboration.

My hope for this website is to create an online forum for medical students and premedical students to exchange ideas, initiate collaborations, share experiences, and most importantly to allow relationships to form that have potential to bridge our two cultures closer together.

VIA Exploring Health Care program is a two-week immersion program that connects participants from Japanese medical schools with Stanford medical and pre-medical students. The program facilitates topics concerning medical ethics from a cross-cultural perspective, cost and accessibility of health care, the doctor-patient relationship and international health policy. What I hope to contribute via my website is a continuum of this learning experience by inviting the program participants to speak with medical students on the East coast and possibly set up campus tours if that is of interest. This is an extremely powerful opportunity to strengthen the Japanese-American relationship and it will be most exciting to see this network develop from both coasts of the United States to overseas in Japan!

2007 JMSA Dinner Banquet speech on behalf of the Nishioka Family

Sally Nishioka was a simple person. She did not have large dreams or great expectations. She never graduated high school or made a lot of money. She lived a modest life and loved the life she lived. This was her gift to us.

The money that she left behind was not the considerable income of a wealthy woman. It was the modest savings of a woman who lived in a rent controlled apartment with hand me down furniture and second hand plates, a woman who wouldn’t buy cucumbers if they were more than sixty-nine cents. The scholarships that her endowment will provide will go to families with lives more privileged than her own. The recipients would have graduated with or without her assistance. They will go on to make far more than my aunt and uncle ever had. So why did she bother?

I believe these scholarships are not a gift. They are a promise and an obligation to fulfill. My aunt entrusted her foundation to us and we entrust her legacy to you. For surely her legacy is not the dollars she left behind but the torch she passes on. My family hopes you will fulfill the promise we see in you to turn the simple and modest life my aunt lived into a legacy larger and greater than money. We see my aunt’s life and her foundation as a bridge. For it is our honor and our privilege to be a part of all your lives.

On behalf of my parents Tami and Teruko Kaneshige, and my sisters Yuki and Eugenia I would like to thank Dr. Homma and the JMSA for their generous help and assistance in the scholarship selection. We look forward to a continued relationship with all of the scholarship recipients and the JMSA. Thank you very much for your attention and your time.

JMSA Dinner, 2007