Everyone has ideas of how their lives will be in the future, and I am no exception to this. As a fourth generation Japanese-American, my idea came from the stories of service of my family dating back to the samurai of feudal Japan. The word samurai even comes from the Japanese word that means “to serve”, and that notion was carried by my family even after they moved to America. I grew up with the legacies of the samurai and the 442nd of WWII from the internment camps, and was deeply moved by the tradition of honorable service in the defense of others. While that leaves very large shoes to fill, it served as constant motivation to work hard. I dedicated much of my youth to improving my fitness, skills, and knowledge so that I could serve in an elite capacity in the military. After passing Special Forces Selection, I volunteered to be a medic because it was the most needed specialty. In doing so, I discovered a lot about myself, including the fact that I enjoyed medicine. That enjoyment drove me to become the best medic that I could be by continually learning and training. In my career, I have had the opportunity to treat many patients in the hospital, clinic, and field setting. In the hospital, I treated patients in the ER, assisted in the OR, ICU and L&D. In the clinic, I mostly treated patients with either ortho or heat injuries. Most of my career was spent in field environments where I worked alone and had to make calls on my own. As such, I am pursuing becoming a trauma surgeon as I begin my medical school journey. I want to take all of my military and civilian experience in emergency medicine and apply it to the field of medicine that I know the best and enjoy working in. This way I can be the surgeon that I know is needed in today’s environment. I saw first hand how important it was for the definitive care after an injury to be competent and compassionate. I treated many patients in the field and was able to stabilize them for however long I had to hold them, but I couldn’t perform definitive treatment for their injuries. Learning the additional pathophysiology and the techniques of surgery will allow me to make sure that when a patient is done with me, they are done, and will only have to recover from then on. Simply put, I want to be able to do the maximum amount possible for anyone that I treat. In regards to obstacles that got in the way of this new path, I’ve had some unpleasant ones. A training accident ended my military career and left me with some permanent physical issues that I’ve only somewhat have been able to overcome. I’ve had to pay for a great deal of treatments including physical therapy, chiropractic treatment, hyperbaric therapy, and supplies out of pocket just to be able to walk and regain function again. The VA wouldn’t cover it and it forced me to alter my work in order to accommodate needed medical assistance to just keep myself mostly pain free. Since I am self employed, managing all of these appointments every week in addition to maintaining my function puts a damper on how I’m able to work. I had to do all my master’s courses and MCAT prep while dealing with all of this as well. That always meant that I wasn’t able to make as much money and had expenses that were always limiting my progress.

Everyone has ideas of how their lives will be in the future, and I am no exception to this. As a fourth generation Japanese-American, my idea came from the stories of service of my family dating back to the samurai of feudal Japan. The word samurai even comes from the Japanese word that means “to serve”, and that notion was carried by my family even after they moved to America. I grew up with the legacies of the samurai and the 442nd of WWII from the internment camps, and was deeply moved by the tradition of honorable service in the defense of others. While that leaves very large shoes to fill, it served as constant motivation to work hard. I dedicated much of my youth to improving my fitness, skills, and knowledge so that I could serve in an elite capacity in the military. I also worked very hard academically to finish near the top of my high school class to get into the Service Academies, and chose the Air Force Academy over any other college. Unfortunately my Air Force career was cut short by budget cuts, so I moved to the Army. After passing Special Forces Selection, I volunteered to be a medic because it was the most needed specialty, and where I could be of most benefit. In doing so, I discovered a lot about myself, including the fact that I enjoyed medicine. That enjoyment drove me to become the best medic that I could be by continually learning and training. In my career, I have had the opportunity to treat many patients in the hospital, clinic, and field setting. In the hospital, I treated patients in the ER, assisted in the OR, ICU and L&D. In the clinic, I mostly treated patients with either ortho or heat injuries. Most of my career was spent in field environments where I worked alone and had to make calls on my own. As such, I am pursuing becoming a trauma surgeon as I begin my medical school journey. I want to take all of my military and civilian experience in emergency medicine and apply it to the field of medicine that I know the best and enjoy working in. This way I can be the surgeon that I know is needed in today’s environment. I saw first hand how important it was for the definitive care after an injury to be competent and compassionate. I treated many patients in the field and was able to stabilize them for however long I had to hold them, but I couldn’t perform definitive treatment for their injuries. Learning the additional pathophysiology and the techniques of surgery will allow me to make sure that when a patient is done with me, they are done, and will only have to recover from then on. Simply put, I want to be able to do the maximum amount possible for anyone that I treat.

After graduating from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2011 with a degree in Asian Studies and languages, I went to the Army as I had planned through college. I had never intended to go to graduate school of any sort, so I didn’t study any of the standard pre-med classes during my undergraduate years. I enlisted as a Special Forces Recruit and went through the entry schools without issue. I then got to Ft. Bragg, NC and passed Special Forces Assessment and Selection in 2013. I then completed the Special Operations Combat Medic course in 2014 and started working for the Special Warfare Training Group. That work included main clinics, field clinics, field range coverage, instruction, and being the lone medic provider for the Military Free Fall course in Yuma, AZ. After being medically retired from the Army in 2018, I had to rebuild my whole future for my career. My experiences in medicine had been profound for me and I made the decision to go back to school to become a doctor. Due to my injuries I needed a job that would pay well and allow me to stay active without damaging my body even more while taking prerequisites for my application. As such I started working as a tennis coach for a local high school and private club given my NCAA and professional competition experience before the military. The flexible hours allowed me to have plenty of time for school and start my own training company for emergency medicine and firearms proficiency with individual and organizational clients. Unfortunately I ended up being waitlisted at several medical schools in the 2021 cycle. The feedback I received was about despite my extensive medical experience, there were concerns about my ability to do graduate level schoolwork because I had been out of the academic environment for about ten years. In order to improve my application and show that I could l indeed still do school, I enrolled in the Masters of Biomedical Science program of Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. Despite working several jobs including running my own company, I managed to graduate the program in September 2022 with a GPA high enough that I was awarded a committee letter from the program on my behalf to the medical schools I was applying to in this 2023 cycle. In addition to school, I’ve continued to maintain my paramedic certification and take on call jobs to increase my cash reserves for living before going to school full time. My motivation for pursuing medicine as a career is deeply woven and yet very simple: I am a guardian. I chose my initial career in Special Operations to be able to protect others. I volunteered to be a medic because I wanted to be of most help to protect those I served with. In doing so I found that I really enjoyed medicine and I was doing well in that field. When I got hurt, I felt like I had lost my purpose at first. I quickly realized that I could continue to serve my nation by using my medical expertise and advancing my scope of practice to be as helpful as possible. My experiences practicing medicine, teaching medicine, and then caring for my father’s cancer during covid all showed that I’m on the path I’m supposed to be on. I know that I can keep being of service to my nation and fellow man. With that in mind, I am always motivated to keep moving forward in my medical education and I won’t settle for where I am.

Athletics has been a major part of my life since I was very young. I was introduced to tennis at the age of 8 and I just immediately fell in love with the game. It became a major part of my schedule as I would go to the tennis courts to practice right after school and stayed there usually until the evening before going home to do homework. Then on the weekends I would compete in tournaments all over Southern California. I made lifelong friends at the club, and we all made each other better in some way. All of the training I did every day to get better on the tennis court helped shaped my character as someone that would identify a weakness and put in the work to improve. I would get hurt because I worked too hard without having the muscles to handle the stress, so I needed to change my training routine. I started to cross-train with cross-country running and weight lifting in order to because I wasn’t naturally strong or tough. The amount of work I put in got me to a level where I had enough muscle mass to protect my joints from the impact stress from intense levels of training and competition on a tennis court. As a result, I was at a fitness level that allowed me to be in the top percentile of Special Operations when I got to that point in my life after my college and professional competition days were over. An added bonus of all of my training and experience with tennis was that I was able to share my knowledge and train others. After I retired from active duty, I started working with younger players and have been quite successful in training them in terms of exercise routines, tennis techniques and game strategy. It is extremely rewarding to see the impact that I’ve made on young athletes in helping them push past their imaginary limits and go on to succeed in college and start their careers. In addition to private lessons with kids and adults, I started coaching tennis at a local high school and coaching adult USTA league teams. While my days of playing high-level tennis are over thanks to my injuries from the Army, the sport continues to be an important part of my life in being able to coach others and provide a level of instruction that is often missing in tennis nowadays.

I didn’t choose medicine as my original career as I spent all my time from high school through college to learn about languages and cultures in anticipation of starting on my special operations career in the military. I gave up playing high level tennis even though I was at the NCAA Division I level and had played some professional matches because I was completely dedicated to my preparation for my military career. Once I got in, I was able be in the top of most all physical challenges, which helped me pass through Special Forces Selection on my first try. We then got to chose specialties and I chose medicine because it was the extremely understaffed specialty in the Regiment. I knew with my science aptitude I would be able to make a difference for the teams with that specialty. Over the course of the very intense training pipeline, I realized that I actually really enjoyed medicine. I was getting opportunities to work with many surgeons in the hospitals I worked at after training because I managed to impress them, so I had a lot of confidence going into my medical career. Unfortunately, some major training injuries ended my military career much earlier than I ever anticipated. I had to pick up the pieces of my life ambition and overcome the chronic pain to create a new future for myself. After I was not so debilitated from the injuries to my spine, I had the realization that my military career was over, but not my medical career. I had realized that I enjoyed the medical part of my job more than anything else in the Army, so under direction of the surgeon I worked for, I started working on applying to medical school. During my career, I had gotten to work with and learn a great deal from the surgeon I worked for, so that set the tone for my patient interactions especially since I worked solo in most cases taking care of patients in both clinic and field environments. However, I also encountered providers that let patients down including myself. Since I was dealing with chronic pain from my injuries, I had to deal with a lot of uncaring medical providers who were not interested in trying to get me better and instead just wanted to push pain medication. The idea of pushing people through the facility rather than spending time to accurately treat a patient was all too prevalent in the facilities in the military, VA, and civilian side. I always took pride in being thorough with my patients, and caring enough about them to make sure that they got an accurate answer. It was really disheartening to see patients not getting that care and personal when I was getting inadequate care for my own injuries to the point that I had to order my own tests and make my own diagnosis for my boss to help treat. I got super motivated from what I saw with my poor care and what happened to other patients, so I made every effort to head towards medical school. I completed my Master’s in Biomedical Science to show medical schools that I was still able to do academics even being out of the school environment for 10 years while I had my military career. Now I’m in the middle of application season for the next class up in the Fall of 2023, and getting through interviews. Medicine has become my career and my passion, so I will see it through for the rest of my life.

The most important thing I’ve learned about investing and trading is that you have two accounts at all times. Obviously there is the brokerage account where the money actually is, but its performance is always secondary to the most important important account, the knowledge account. You have to put time into learning about the market, the patterns, and the process before you can start making money in the brokerage. I’ve continued to apply this tip even though I’ve been involved with the market for nearly 5 years. There’s just so much to learn because the market is always changing. Hot sectors change with various catalysts, patterns come in and out of play, macro events come into the picture, and random phenomena such as the Wall Street Bets induced short squeeze last year. Over the past 3 years I’ve shifted away from investing to day trading because of everything that I had been learning. It allowed me to grow my brokerage account at a speed that traditional investing never could. Studying penny stock patterns, how to research catalysts, learning about options contracts on major listed companies, and what patterns worked best for my personality took many hours of videos, reading, and screen time. I put in that effort to grow my knowledge account and it has been worth it. While I haven’t managed to become a millionaire, I’ve managed to be able to have some financial assistance in paying for school applications and home renovations with profits. Part of growing my knowledge account was that it’s not viable to hit home run trades and make it quick. Putting in the work to make smart trades and grow my account with singles that add up over time is the way that I can make it, and strive to do so.

I’m one of the type of people that is intrinsically motivated, and while extrinsic factors are occasionally boosts, they don’t provide lasting motivation for me. As a descendant of a samurai family that also served in the 442nd for the US during WWII, my familial legacy of honor and duty is my primary motivation for everything that I have achieved and seek to achieve in the future. The drive to make a difference and serve as a guardian for those around me is what lead me to become a special operations combat medic. It was a long and difficult course but was very rewarding to have the knowledge and skills that I needed to be the most effective guardian that I could be. In order to continue being the best medic I could be, I continued studying and learning everything that I could so that I could handle all the different environments I would be working in to a greater degree. When my military career came to a swift and painful end due to my spinal injury, I had to dig deep in myself to get motivated to even get off the floor because I felt everything I had worked for was for naught. I realized that my ability to serve my country and protect others wasn’t actually diminished by my injury though. I still had my mind and my medical skills that I could continue to hone. Now I’m pushing everyday towards getting into medical school and becoming a surgeon so that I can maximize my ability to help the patients that I see. The long road of classes and often unnecessary information for the sake of busy work is a trying endeavor, but the goal of being the best guardian I can be keeps me going.

Life takes completely unpredictable twists and turns, and any single instant can throw the world you worked for into chaos. I’ve lived though that scenario several times, but most recently this chaotic turn has led me back to continue my schooling. I spend my time in the University of Hawaii at Manoa prepping for my career in Army Special Forces so I studied Southeast Asian languages, history, and culture. I graduated with a BA in Asian Studies and Certificate in Islamic Studies. I didn’t have any intention on going to graduate school because the plan for my life was laid out ahead of me. As such, I focused on my language skills, scuba skills, and cultural knowledge more than I did on school as a whole. After graduation I joined the Army and proceeded straight through Special Forces Selection. Upon passing, I volunteered to attend the Special Operations Combat Medic course because I knew it was the most difficult specialty to attain and as such was the most needed on the teams. The extremely difficult 10 month course included academics and hands on training with high standards and over a 60% fail rate. Despite the fact that I had not had an interest in medicine prior to attending, I found the information extremely interesting. As such I graduated and went on to serve as a medic in both the field and clinical settings. This was the path I had worked and sacrificed so much for, and it was going well. Or so I thought. Taking injuries is a part of existing in the military and ever more likely in special operations. As the years went by I took several injuries that would become chronic issues. Then during a training event, my lower spine was damaged and ended my career in an instant. My entire plan for my future; everything I had spent years sacrificing for was just gone in that one moment. While I was recovering and getting medically retired from active duty, I made the decision that medicine was the path that I should now pursue. It was a way that I could still serve my country and protect those around me like I did in the military. I enrolled in local schools to finish prerequisites for medical school while working and applied to medical school. Unfortunately I couldn’t get off the waitlists for several medical schools. In order to make me a more competitive applicant, I applied to and enrolled in Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine’s Masters of Biomedical Science. Thus far in the program I have done well and been able to apply the lessons learned from my practical experience. Aside from wanting to continue to serve my country, I have another motivation to pursue medicine. Due to the experiences around the treatment of my injuries and chronic pain, I got to experience what it is to be a patient in an often uncaring system. While I had been trained to be thorough and curious at all times when dealing with patients, I did not receive any of that as a patient. I will work through the academic system to become the best medical provider I can become, so that I can make sure that those that I care for get the treatment I did not. That is my drive in pursing my education again, and why medicine is so important to me.

Patience is an important part of life because plans take time to come together more often than not. The worst decisions tend to be the ones where instant gratification is the motivating force or just impulsive decision making. I always incorporate planning in my life regardless of whether or not my longer term plans work out. I made a plan to spend a career in the Army, but part way through, I was injured and my plan fell apart. I made a new plan to use my skills and experience I gained in medicine to make that my new future. Even though the road to and through medical school is extremely long, I am dedicated to it wholly. In order to deal with all the trials and tribulations along my over ten years of coming professional school education, I have to be patient and persistent. The gratification comes at the end of the journey and the start of my medical career. There’s no benefit to letting the time frame get to me because what I want and have worked for requires a certain amount of time. As such, I will keep my nose to the grindstone, work hard, and patiently move through all the steps to become the surgeon I want to be.

My goal in life has always been to honor my family's history and tradition of service. From my samurai heritage to the numerous family members that have served in the military, my family has always sought to protect their community. From early on in my life, I had my life plan set to join the military and get into special operations. After graduating college with language and cultural knowledge needed for the job, I joined the Army and became a Special Operations Combat Medic. While I didn't plan on a medical career initially, I saw how great the need was for the position so I volunteered despite it's difficulty. What I didn't expect though, was the fact that I both really enjoyed medicine and was sought after for my proficiency. I used my new position and capabilities to benefit my fellow soldiers and friends. It was extremely gratifying for me to have so many people want to come see me for treatment or medical advice instead of other facilities or providers. Medicine was fascinating to me so I continued to study it and was very excited about the advances in knowledge and technology that I had to keep up with. I worked in clinical environments where I reported to a PA or a doctor and enjoyed that more routine medicine, but I also have a great deal of time working in field environments where I'm alone treating patients. In the field, I had the sole responsibility of all medical diagnostic and treatment decisions. As a result, I had to make sure I knew as much as possible maintain all of my skills so that I could handle that responsibility. I was greatly honored that after my first time working solo, the unit requested me back by name for each following event. They told me that they liked me more than other medical providers because in addition to actually knowing medicine, I was "actually interested in the well being of the people I worked with". I took that to heart especially because I realized I was making a difference in other peoples' lives that I was saving or simply treating. When I was injured to the point that my active duty career was going to be over, my life's work and goals seemed to have vanished in a moment. I had to find a new career and goal in life since my original was no longer viable to stay in, and that was depressing to be honest. Thankfully I bounced back from the sadness quickly despite the damage to my body, and decided I would make medicine my full time career going into my civilian life. I had not received quality care for my injuries from the Army or the VA, so I had plenty of motivation to maintain my high level of patient care with the goal of making sure no one had to go through what I went through. I saw so many people including myself getting overlooked by medical providers that were basically going through the motions that it really angered me. That anger of the status quo combined with my love of medicine and being a guardian personality to motivate me to start the long process of applying to medical school in pursuit of becoming a surgeon. I plan to become either a trauma or cardio surgeon depending on where school and life takes me because I believe I can make the most positive effect for the most people in such a position. Being a surgeon of either specialty would give me the additional knowledge, skills, and responsibility I need in order to take care of patients to a much higher level than I'm currently capable of doing. In coordination with other providers that I trust, we want to challenge the status quo in medicine that lacks curiosity and compassion to find actual answers for patients. While my injuries prevent me from serving my country as part of elite units, I have found a path that allows me to continue to serve my country's people in a different way. As a caring high level medical provider, my family legacy is honored and the people get a provider that will treat them as they deserve. My injuries are daily reminders of what it feels like when the medical treatment isn't to that level after all.

They say that the price of freedom is paid in the blood of soldiers that fight to protect it. While that is true, blood isn’t the only thing that veterans pay. We give up many experiences that people take for granted, suffer injuries, often work very stressful hours, and all of that takes a toll on the mental health of service members. As a medically retired special operations combat medic, I’ve witnessed the damage in others and in myself. My injuries to my spine and shoulder cause me daily pain, but the injury that caused the most stress in my life however was the TBI that took me almost a year of my life to get back to normal. I’ve always been a very cerebral individual with my intelligence and memory being my defining traits. That TBI took all that away in an instant, and that scared me more than I’ve ever conceived. My entire self identity was in question and felt as though I had no future. If it weren’t for my support network of friends and family, that type of depression and fear could easily have spiraled out of control. Unfortunately, not everyone in the military has such support. There are too many commands out there in the military where those in charge would rather protect themselves professionally than provide working environments conducive to productivity and the mental health of their soldiers. The reality is retention is dropping across fields in the military. This isn’t because we stop believing in serving; it’s because the well being and treatment of soldiers is getting worse. It drains the mental health of people to the point where they become disenfranchised and have to look for something else in life instead of the service we were born for.

Patients are the group of people that are in most need of advocacy and yet are so often unable to get anyone to go to bat for them. As someone that has endured his share of injuries, I know first hand how disheartening it is to have providers overlook you and be marginalized for dealing with chronic pain. As a medical professional myself, I have used my negative experiences to fuel my desire to help others have better experiences than I have. While I was still active duty in the Army, I had a patient come to the clinic I was working at with a complaint of a poison ivy rash. I examined his hands and noticed there were small dots around the joints visible on his skin that were not consistent with his skin tone. I asked him if he normally had these spots and he said that he didn't, which made me far more concerned about the cause. I suspected a clotting condition that was a result of the prolonged infection from untreated poison ivy exposure. When I reported my suspicions to my superior with the recommendation to evacuate the patient to a hospital that could handle the blood condition, I was told to just give him antibiotics and send him on his way back into the field. That didn't sit well with me cause I knew there was something more going on with this patient and I wasn't about to let him get ignored. I told the patient about some injuries that had happened to me and what happened as a result of me not getting treatment when I should have. I earned his trust and he opened up about having started to experience some shortness of breath over the past day. With that piece of information, I had all I needed to confirm my suspicion of disseminated intravascular coagulation. I argued with my superior in the clinic and didn’t back down because I knew the consequences for my patient if I let him get passed over. I called for a transport to take him to the main post hospital and didn’t wait to get approval on it. The hospital reported back that the patient had indeed developed disseminated intravascular coagulation and they were able to handle it based on catching it early. My superior just glossed over the case and continued to conduct himself as he always did, but I took that experience as a warning. I could never allow myself to become so lazy and uncaring. I had providers treat me that way and my injuries got worse. If I hadn’t stood up for this patient, he wouldn’t have survived being in the field. That wasn’t my first, and was far from my last time treating a patient, but it is one of the most important encounters I’ve ever had. I hadn’t fully decided on what to with my future since my injuries weren’t going to allow me to remain on active duty, but after this encounter, I made my decision. I had diagnostic knowledge and an actual care about my patient’s outcomes, so I dedicated all my energy towards enhancing my scope of practice by going to medical school and becoming a doctor.

Resilience is a part of my character that, if I didn’t have, I wouldn’t be here to apply to medical school. I spent my entire life training for a career in special operations and made a lot of sacrifices to get there. Once I started in the Army going through the the Special Forces Selection course, I had to go through events that were extremely grueling and damaging to my body. During the last week of the event, I separated my left shoulder carrying an apparatus that weighed over 800lbs. That meant I had to do the final 26 mile march with 65lbs on my back and a shoulder that felt like a knife was twisting in it with every step. I kept my composure and completed the event despite how easy it would be to give into the pain and stop. I was determined to finish at the same level that I always did, so I blocked out the pain the best I could and persevered. After Selection, I immediately started the Special Operations Combat Medic course with my shoulder still damaged. I hid the injury to prevent being dropped from the course and still managed to perform at a high level for the duration of the nine month course. After graduation I had major reconstructive surgery to repair my shoulder, and I had to work hard through physical therapy to get all my strength back over the course of a year. I also had to endure a lot of pressure from my command to get back to full duty despite what the situation of my shoulder was. I kept my head up and kept doing my job at a high level as I balanced healing and proving my worth. The ultimate blow was later in my career, when my spine was injured during a training accident. At first I couldn’t even feel my legs, let alone get off the ground, but once I was able, I took medication to allow me to complete the training course. I managed to tough out the pain and hide my condition, but it definitely made the injury worse. Finally, bad luck put me under a burned out tree branch to fall on my head to a TBI that I also tried to cover up. Unfortunately the injuries were more severe than I wanted to admit and soon after I was facing the reality of being medically retired from the military. Everything I had worked for my entire life was destroyed in one moment. I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself and just like my ancestors did, I said “gaman” and maintained my composure. Thanks to my job in the army, I had discovered that I enjoyed working in the medical field and now I could focus all of my time and energy on my new passion and direction. I’m now able to draw on all the hard times I’ve been through and use them as stepping stones to becoming the best doctor I can be. Thanks to my cultural upbringing and the support of my family and friends I’ve maintained my resilience through many difficult situations, and the lessons I’ve learned along the way will help me deal with the tough times ahead.