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DG: Okay. But talking about working with the aging now, you were on several committees and worked with the...

BU: Yeah. I was always in geriatrics more or less, but geriatrics is a special field by itself, and I was at Providence. The other thing, too, is the fact that it's, you tried to figure out what influenced you, at Providence Hospital, I started Providence Hospital Hospice. Most of the hospice patients were older and I started it with, with a nursing friend whose name is Alma Stanford and together we started a hospice in Providence and then that spread so it's now city-wide. All the hospitals, all the hospitals have a hospice and they're all started by me and my friend.

DG: Don't you think it's partially because, like, you go into the homes and you really get to --

BU: Yeah, that makes a difference.

DG: You get to know the people and what they need.

BU: Yeah. And so that you have to gain some degree of satisfaction for doing those. That's true. And a lot of the patients I meet up there at Keiro are people that I've been there in their home. And you got to get some kind of degree of satisfaction, and the payment for satisfaction is different than if you have patient come to your office.

DG: What was the seeds of how Keiro got started?

BU: Well, see, way back some twenty-three years ago, right coincidentally there was a nursing home available for sale in the Mount Baker district. Well, about ten of us spontaneously -- not spontaneously -- but we asked certain people to come. Tomio, and you know Harry, Tomio, and myself and Tosh Okamoto because I'd been needling these guys before. Say, you know what, we got to do something for the Isseis. We owe them because at the time, a number of my patients had committed suicide in nursing home. How did they do it? They quit eating and drinking and they died, except Mr. Eddie Shimomura -- who died last week -- his father had to go to a nursing home because he and his wife both worked, and they had to put him in a nursing home because he needed care. He went to this nursing home near here called... anyway, and every day he'd put a, put a bag over his head and take a rope and tie it around in a noose. Well, as long as they knew he was going to do it, they caught him, but on Saturday when they had big change in personnel, he went, put it in, but they didn't get him fast enough, so, therefore, he died. All these things have an influence in your life. Ojisan was a nice guy and so, therefore, you feel that you had to do something for them.

DG: Well, one of the reasons that you felt that he wanted to die was why?

BU: Because at the hakujin nursing home, which was the only one available, they didn't do anything for him. First, he couldn't get Japanese food. Two, the activity was all on the hakujin scale so he never enjoyed any of it. And so that if we have our own place, we'd have gohan, we have some Japanese food, but also our activity would be lean toward Issei. They'd sing Japanese song. You know what, we have Japanese song. We have the intergenerational kids, two, three-year-old kids. We teach them Japanese song and then they go upstairs, and they'll sing Japanese song with the oldsters in Japanese. That helps to keep them stable and happy. So we thought this out twenty-three years ago about getting intergenerational child care center, all the singing. We had, you know, they have what they call Echo Club, Echo Choir. Well, these are women who work for Japanese company who get together, and they come and sing. Sing, they promised the other day, they promised they will come every three months. They'll come and sing choir, chorus. So these are the things that help me in terms of give me satisfaction that I find a part in doing this.

DG: Well, you seem to have a particularly strong feeling of returning on.

BU: Yeah, it's called giri, or on. Well, I really do. I think it starts back from the baseball days. You see, at the time it impressed you a lot that these people, who had nothing to gain, put out these things for us so we could have a, have a good time. So it's a continual thing. And the other thing, too, is very important part of my life, too, is the fact that I have been a teacher at the University of Washington Medical School for the last forty, fifty years.

DG: In nephrology?

BU: Huh? No, in everything. And I'm an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of the Washington Medical School. The only reason they give me a rank is because each time they go up the ladder, they tell you, "Hey, thanks, but do a lot more. Come back." That's what it amounts to. So actually speaking, academically it's very little, but you have a lot of fun doing it.

DG: So what is it that you particularly like sharing with the...

BU: Teaching. Teaching things that you know.

DG: I know. About what?

BU: I get medical students and I take 'em on house calls. So you see, you learn something that you'll never learn by sitting back at your desk at the office. So they like that and they appreciate it and they tell me so that's your pay.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.