<Begin Segment 49>

AI: Well, I wanted to ask a little bit more about your professional name, and whether you had any discussions with your husband about your name because I have always known you as Dr. Ruby Inouye and you had talked a little bit about your name earlier, yesterday, but I wondered if you and your husband had any discussion about your name?

RI: Okay, we probably did. But see, I was already in practice when I met him. And I was already Dr. Inouye. And then, when I got married I told him that I'm not changing my professional name because most of my patients are Japanese and "Inouye" definitely is Japanese whereas "Shu" is Chinese. So, I think there was no objection to that. But I always tried to say that when, when it had nothing to do with medicine that I was Mrs. Shu. So, our household accounts were always under Shu and I called myself Ruby Shu after I retired, so it's not that I'm not proud of Inouye, but I figured as long as I'm Dr. Inouye, maybe people would be more likely to ask me lotta medical questions, so, but, it's okay. When people ask me questions I don't mind nowadays, and especially since my patients were long-time patients, they tell me what their medical problems have been and I, I sympathize with them and I understand what they're saying, so I don't mind. And my patients are my friends, and to this day I have lotta friends, they're, they were my former patients, but... they don't feel scared or, what shall I say? They have no qualms about approaching me, so I hope that I'm very approachable, that I could talk to them, it's okay.

<End Segment 49> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.