Acts of True Valor: Dr. Jimmy Hara’ s Lifelong Quest for Truth and Reconciliation( continued)
His intellectual acumen was piqued by a strong attraction to science, particularly Paleontology.“ As an undergrad, I got invited to go on field trips with a professor of paleo. So, I went off to the four corner states( i. e., Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico). I was planning to become a paleontologist. I was allegedly the world’ s expert on mosasaurs, which are marine Cretaceous lizards that swam around the oceans. That would have led me to Harvard or the University of Chicago, because those were the two most famous schools for paleontologists,” he said.
Dr. Hara decided on medicine after a flirtation with dentistry. Dr. Peter Vaughn, who taught vertebrate morphology and vertebrate paleontology at UCLA, was an influence.“ He took me aside and said,‘ you know, you’ re kind of smart. Have you thought of becoming a dentist?’” The inference being that though young Jimmy was proficient with bones, there wouldn’ t be any jobs available. The field was small and exclusive.
“ At the time, I was taking a lot of biology and chemistry courses. It was a timeframe when we had to pay for our own microscopes. UCLA Medical School was still a relatively young back then. Peter said,‘ why don’ t you apply to( UC) San Francisco or to Stanford, because they’ ve been around for a while.’ My first acceptance was from UC San Francisco and that’ s why I went there. The faculty was very progressive and very supportive of Asian students, and what few Latino students that were there. There were no Black students at UCSF at the time,” he noted.
The Bay Area was a hotbed of political action. There was S. I. Hayakawa, the conservative Japanese American lightning rod who became president of San Francisco State University and later a US Senator. Campuses were theatres for teach-ins, Vietnam War draft resistance, sitins, strikes, and the disruptions that were hallmarks of the 1960s liberation struggle. Every major university had a Black Student Union, Chicano Power was a rallying cry,
Dr. Hara’ s Wall
and many Asian Americans were supporters of the Third World Liberation Front.
Dr. Hara and his medical school classmates volunteered for the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic once it opened up.“ Like it or not, I became socially conscious,” he said. Back in Los Angeles for his residency training, he volunteered at the East LA Barrio Free Clinic because of his prior experience in Haight Ashbury. He later volunteered at what became the Venice Family Clinic. When he finished his residency, the Vietnam War was still going on. He and his colleagues entered a program that allowed them to complete their residency training, then off to the military. A doctor draft, as it were.
In the Navy, Dr. Hara was assigned to the USS Turner Joy and the USS Maddox, destroyers that were fired on by fishing boats at the onset of the Vietnamese war in the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident. Later, he became medical officer for the cruiser destroyer force. Upon its return stateside to Long Beach, the Turner Joy was allowed to fire the last round of naval gunfire at the moment of ceasefire.
Deployed at Long Beach Naval Hospital, Dr. Hara was assigned multiple tasks beyond his specialization as an internist.“ I had to do deliveries. I had to see kids. I had to do a lot of minor surgery. And I did a whole lot of psychiatric counseling. Back then, if you had trained in internal medicine, pediatrics or OB / GYN, you were eligible to sit for the family practice boards,” he added.
Even though he trained in internal medicine, he became
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 31