This year, the University of Hawaiʻi John A. Burns School of Medicine celebrates 60 years of training physicians and scientists who serve the people of Hawaiʻi. For six decades, JABSOM has conducted research and trained physicians in Hawaiʻi, for Hawaiʻi. That mission continues today through the work and lives of its students, alumni, and faculty. At the 60th Anniversary Gala, the JABSOM Media and Communications team unveiled The Heart of JABSOM, a short video featuring Ryan Keliʻi Shontell, Dr. Geri Young, Dr. Venkataraman Balaraman, and Dr. Keolamau Yee. The student, alumni, and faculty were chosen to be featured to represent the school’s hyperlocal approach to research, its commitment to rural education, and the way students are taught to provide care with aloha.
Hyperlocal Research
For JABSOM third year medical student Keliʻi Shontell, science has always been personal.
“Growing up, the men in my family never really told each other that we loved each other,” he recalls. “The first time my father and I said it was after he was diagnosed with cancer. It was really hard.”
Shontell’s journey began in the small community of Kohala on Hawaiʻi Island, where access to health care was limited and cancer was heartbreakingly common. “My grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, my brother — and most recently, my father,” he says.
When his father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, Shontell paused his PhD studies to become his caregiver during treatment in Seattle.
That experience ended up shaping his life’s work.
Back at JABSOM, he turned to research that focused on Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander cancer disparities, data that, until recently, was largely invisible. “We’re often lumped in with Asian Americans,” he explains. “On paper, the numbers look fine, but that hides the truth. Native Hawaiians have some of the highest rates of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease in the country.”
Shontell’s research aims to change that. “If the research doesn’t have an impact on the community, it’s wasted.”
JABSOM is the Medical School for ALL of Hawaiʻi
JABSOM’s mission to serve all of Hawaiʻi is illustrated by Dr. Geri Young as served Kauaʻi for more than four decades.
“I grew up in Honolulu, but my husband and I moved to Kauaʻi right after medical school,” she recalls. “We thought it would be for a few years. Next thing I knew, it was 42.”
As a pediatrician on Kauaʻi, Dr. Young became a highly recognizable face. “If you’re lucky enough to practice on a neighbor island, you know everyone, the parents, their kids, and then their kids’ kids,” she says with a smile. “It’s like one big family. You can’t beat the beauty of Kauaʻi, but it’s really the people who made my life as close to perfect as one could get.”
As JABSOM continues to expand on the Garden Isle through the Kauaʻi Medical Training Track and the new Family Medicine Residency Program, Dr. Young hopes new generations of physicians will continue to answer the call to serve in rural communities. “For me, practicing on Kauaʻi was a priceless gift,” she says. “I always encourage medical students and residents with roots in Hawaiʻi to consider the neighbor islands. We need them.”
Full Circle: A Story of Healing and Mentorship
When Keolamau Yee was born three months early, weighing just a pound and a half, doctors weren’t sure she would survive.
Her neonatologist, Dr. Venkataraman Balaraman, believed she would. “He was my champion,” she says. “He showed up every day, took incredible care of me, and believed in me when the odds said otherwise.”
Dr. Balaraman still remembers that time vividly. “We always go in with the belief that this child will do well,” he says. “You need that trust, that belief, to do the best you can.”
Keolamau not only survived, she thrived. Inspired by the care she received, she decided to attend JABSOM and become a physician herself.
“So many people paved the way for me,” she says. “It takes an entire community: your family, your mentors, and the JABSOM ʻohana to grow each doctor.”
Today, that circle has come beautifully full: Dr. Yee now mentors Dr. Balaraman’s daughter, Kalpana, who is studying at JABSOM.
“At the end of the day, you don’t go through all of this because it’s a job. You do it because you believe that caring matters, that it changes lives,” Yee said. “I know that, because someone once cared enough to save mine.”
Sixty Years and Counting
For sixty years, JABSOM has shaped the landscape of medicine in Hawaiʻi in research and medical education. However, the people behind the mission like Shontell, Young, Balaraman, and Yee, are just some who carry the JABSOM spirit into every patient encounter and every discovery.
“The role of JABSOM is so critical in Hawaiʻi and the work that they’ve done is central to literally every person who lives here and far beyond in the region,” said UH President Wendy Hensel. “We’re so incredibly proud to be part of JABSOM here at UH.”