Dr. Danny Takanishi has officially accepted the permanent position of Director of Student Affairs at JABSOM after serving as the interim director for the past 11 months. He took over the role following the retirement of Dr. Larry Burgess, who held the position for seven years.
Takanishi, a JABSOM graduate, has held various roles in our school for more than 10 years.
A cancer surgeon, Takanishi returned to Hawaiʻi as a visiting professor. That quickly turned into becoming the Chair of JABSOM’s Surgery Department. It was a role he held for 11 years. Takanishi was also the General Surgery Residency program director. Most recently, he served as Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs before filling the void left by Dr. Burgess in the Office of Student Affairs.
“Dr. Takanishi is a perfect choice for this role,” said Sam Shomaker, MD, JD, MSM, Dean of JABSOM. “Danny carries extensive local and national experience that our students will undoubtedly benefit from.”
Some of that experience includes serving in roles for the American Board of Surgery, the American College of Surgeons, the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Program, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the Federation of State Medical Boards, and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME).
Equipped with the knowledge that comes from being a JABSOM graduate, faculty, and leader, Takanishi is prepared to continue to guide the next generation of physicians of Hawaiʻi.
“In a physician’s lifetime, if we’re blessed with longevity, we can care for many patients. That number tends to be finite within the constraints of our professional lifespan,” Takanishi said. “On the other hand, in the context of academics, where you help to create systems or you help to mentor or assist with policies that can reach a much broader group of individuals who then are going to go forward to extend what you do, there’s merit and value to this. Having been raised in a family where my father was a school teacher, there was this imprinting of the value of education. The payback you get is not necessarily what you see right away, because it is an investment. Education has some profound consequences, and it has a significant reach.”
