Laughter and a quick shuffle of chairs fill the air as Tracie Okumura steps to the front of a bright classroom. Curious eyes follow as she lifts a model of the heart for the class to see. "Who can tell me what this is?” she asks, and nearly every hand goes up.
For Okumura, some of the most meaningful moments in medical school happen right here, far from the hospital, inside Hawaiʻi’s middle and high school classrooms thanks to JABSOM’s School Health Education Program (SHEP).
SHEP has Okumura and other medical students traveling to schools to introduce students to medicine and teach basic health concepts. Since its inception in 2001, SHEP has reached thousands of students in more than 33 Department of Education middle and high schools across Hawaiʻi, giving young people direct access to hands-on learning about health and medicine. During a recent trip to Queen’s North Hawaiʻi Community Hospital, Okumura and fellow third-year medical students Quan Lac and Aaron Yamasaki led hands-on demonstrations for local students, walking them through activities ranging from suturing techniques to ultrasound.
“We try to make the sessions very interactive,” Okumura said. “They get the chance to kind of dip their toes into medicine and see what it’s like.”
The outreach is designed to inspire students to consider a career in medicine by
hearing directly from those who have chosen that path.
“When I was in high school, I had some opportunities, but I didn’t necessarily have a mentor who could show me what medicine was really like,” she said. “To have the chance to be that person for someone else is incredibly rewarding.”
SHEP is a community health elective at JABSOM that medical students can join in their first year. Think of it as a mobile mini-medical school that brings interactive health education straight into Hawaiʻi’s classrooms. While the program benefits local students, it also provides JABSOM students with a critical opportunity to develop communication skills. Okumura says teaching high school students has helped her learn how to break down complicated medical information into language people can easily understand.
“I’ve used the skills I developed in SHEP almost daily,” she said. “Whether it’s in clinic or on the hospital wards, you learn how to take medicine and break it down into something more digestible.”
The experience has also sharpened her ability to read an audience, which helps in patient care.
“As I’m talking, I’m looking at people and thinking, ‘Is what I’m saying clicking, or is it not clicking?’” she said. “That ability to adjust how you explain something is incredibly valuable when you’re working with patients.”
The process reinforces a long-standing principle at JABSOM: “see one, do one, teach one.” By teaching others, students deepen their own understanding of medical concepts while developing the communication skills that will help them throughout their careers.
“We spend so much time doing the ‘teach one’ that a lot of these concepts have become really second nature and helped to really ingrain in ourselves, and our practice and it's absolutely been invaluable,” Okumura said.
Beyond the personal growth for medical students, SHEP also plays an important role in building Hawaiʻi’s future healthcare workforce. At the Queen’s North Hawaiʻi visit, students learned about the path to becoming a physician and had the chance to ask JABSOM students and JABSOM surgery professor, Dean Mikami, MD, questions about college, medical school and life in medicine.
For many in attendance, it may be the first time they’ve met someone close to their own age pursuing a career in healthcare. Much of SHEP’s outreach focuses on public schools, helping expose students to medical careers and opportunities that they may not otherwise have access to.
“We’re going to need doctors one day,” Okumura said. “Programs like this help recruit the best of the best and make sure students know these opportunities exist.”
"Can you believe that SHEP is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2026? Much of the program’s success is owed to those who had the vision to conceptualize what began as a service-learning opportunity that supported students and teachers in the Department of Education’s General Health Education classrooms,” said SHEP Director and Director of Admissions of JABSOM, Ivy Nip Asano, MD.
SHEP has also shaped Okumura’s personal experience in medical school.
Working closely with fellow students Aaron and Quan, along with Dr. Ivy Asano, and JABSOM Admissions Specialist Christine Postmus, Okumura says the group quickly developed a strong bond through the program’s outreach work.
“We’ve become really close friends,” she said. “SHEP helped us build friendships that I’m pretty sure will last for the rest of our lives. When I need to refill my cup, I go back to outreach,” she said. “It reminds me why I went into medicine in the first place.”
Looking back, Okumura says SHEP has had a profound influence on her journey through medical school.
“I cannot emphasize enough how much this program has changed the trajectory of my life,” she said. “I didn’t know I had such a strong interest in education until I became involved.”
Today, she encourages new medical students to participate whenever they can.
“It was the best part of my week when I was a first-year,” she said. “You’re making an impact in the community while also becoming a better physician, and if we can inspire even a few students to pursue medicine, that’s a win for Hawaiʻi.”
“SHEP owes much of its success to the leadership and hard work of giants such as Dr. Gwen Naguwa, Dr. Richard Kasuya, Dr. Walter Imai, Mr. Michael Fukuda and Dr. Kenton Kramer. Further, we are grateful to be able to collaborate with other JABSOM groups such as SimTiki, the Anatomy Department, AHEC and students in other JABSOM community health groups,” Asano said. “Over the years, we have seen the tremendous talent and potential of Hawaii’s students from one end of our State to the other and we now work to provide opportunities that will help them to grow their interest in becoming Hawaii’s future healthcare leaders. The benefits of this program are multitudinous. Through SHEP, our medical students hone their communication and creative teaching skills as well as develop into role models and leaders in our community. Additionally, through our work in SHEP, we are investing in and growing the future generations of healthcare leaders for the State of Hawaii."
For more information on the SHEP Program, including ways to support, please email Dr. Asano at inip@hawaii.edu.