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Fifty years ago, Dr. Arlene Minami Koizumi wasn't planning to become a physician. She had graduated from ʻAiea High School, earned a biology degree from Coe College in Iowa and returned home to Hawaiʻi, where she worked as a pulmonary technician at The Queen's Medical Center and later researched swine influenza.
Then a friend she worked with at Queen's made a suggestion.
"She just said, 'Why don't you apply?'" Koizumi recalled.
So she did.
Koizumi became a member of the second class of JABSOM's ʻImi Hoʻōla Program, beginning a journey that would lead her to medical school and a career caring for patients in Hawaiʻi and abroad.
Now, five decades later, Koizumi is creating that opportunity for someone else.
Through the Minami and Koizumi Endowed ʻImi Hoʻōla Scholarship, Koizumi will provide full medical school tuition and living expenses for an ʻImi who completes the program, removing a major financial barrier for a future physician following a path she once traveled herself.
Her reason for choosing ʻImi Hoʻōla is simple.
"Because it gave me a chance," Koizumi said. "If I didn't have them, I would never do it. I would never get any more schooling."
Koizumi remembers the early days of ʻImi Hoʻōla much differently from the program students experience today. She studied biochemistry, physiology, biology, anatomy and other subjects designed to prepare students for medical school. She remembers studying constantly and forming relationships with classmates, even though completing the program did not yet guarantee admission to JABSOM.
"It didn't feel like we were competing against each other," she said.
Koizumi also helped create a tradition that continues today. Her class was involved in designing and selling one of the early Kahuna Lapaʻau shirts that remain a familiar part of the ʻImi Hoʻōla experience.
After completing ʻImi Hoʻōla, Koizumi earned her medical degree from JABSOM and trained in internal medicine.
Her career eventually took her throughout the Pacific. She cared for patients at Schofield Barracks and Pearl Harbor in the emergency room, spent 11 years practicing family medicine in Japan and later worked at Naval Air Station Barbers Point before returning to Pearl Harbor. She retired in 2019 after a career that grew from an opportunity she never expected.
"I was lucky," Koizumi said.
Koizumi remained characteristically modest when asked about making one of the most significant individual gifts in ʻImi Hoʻōla's history. She credits her parents, who had high school educations and paid for her undergraduate education, with giving her the foundation to succeed. She also credits a career that allowed her to build financial security. With her siblings, nieces and nephews doing well, Koizumi began thinking about where her money could have an impact. Her financial advisor at First Hawaiian Bank encouraged her to consider philanthropy. When it came time to decide where, she thought about the program that had opened the door to medicine for her.
“Because if I didn't have ʻImi Hoʻōla, I would never have gone on to have this career”, she explains.
ʻImi Hoʻōla has spent more than five decades creating pathways to medical school for students with strong ties to Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. Since 1973, 327 ʻImi Hoʻōla participants have graduated from JABSOM and many have gone on to become leaders at the medical school and in their careers.
Koizumi's gift will now allow another ʻImi Hoʻōla graduate to begin medical school with tuition and living expenses covered and she’s excited to meet them at the annual ʻImi Completion ceremony in May 2027.
“ I think it’ll hit me when I see the student,” she said. “Then I’ll realize how transformative this gift is.”