<Begin Segment 22>

TI: Okay. I'm gonna switch gears. I'm gonna, before we got into judo, I left you, this is right after the war, where you working, I think at the Sisters of Charity?

YU: Yes.

TI: So this was a job you got.

YU: Right.

TI: And I just want to pick up your, 'cause you have this other amazing career in medical laboratories, and so I wanted to kind of continue that story. So from those early jobs in these laboratories, let's talk about your career. So how, how did you, how did that career begin? I mean, how did you decide to get into your own business?

YU: Well, I found that, let's see, I had this job with the college and that, part time, that gave me, I taught two classes every day, two classes. And I had a varsity class on Friday, so I mingled, put these all in so they would, the varsity would work with the intermediate and beginning, so they started to learn a little bit about helping people and helping out, and I said, "This is what you got to do." And it worked out real well. Everybody... and this encouraged the beginners and intermediates to go into the varsity because they were having fun. In the meantime, I had this laboratory work, and at the laboratory I told 'em, "I need a, I need to take from about eleven o'clock to one o'clock, two hours off for lunch." Well, "But I will come in earlier, one hour earlier, and I'll stay an hour later." And they said, well, they really liked that because that's the period when they didn't want to come in early, they didn't want to stay after, so I said, "I'll do this if you give me..."

So doing that, I start to get judo going, and I got, I was getting paid much better now in the laboratory, and I got many offers. And first I went to a place called Doctors Hospital, and they were, they paid me much more, so I quit O'Connor's, but they said, "Well, we would still like you to cover the emergencies for us." But I had to cover emergencies on this Doctors Hospital also, so I said, "Okay, sure." so I had two emergencies to cover, but it was okay. And during the daytime I went and did judo. So as time went on, I went from Doctors Hospital and I quit O'Connor's and Doctors and I went to San Jose Hospital, as supervisor there. And now it was this, the laboratory was close by and judo was close by too, so it made it a lot easier.

And then California has a law in the laboratory field where -- I had, I had all my license and everything -- if after five years in the field, if you can pass, pass a test called the Clinical Bio-analyst Exam, you can own and direct your own laboratory without having anybody supervising. So I decide, okay, I'll take this exam, and I got a book, textbook, very thick one. And I said, "Okay, this is on hematology." So I would spend about six months studying that one section, hematology, everything about hematology. Then I would go on immunology, and parasitology, all of these things, and I would get help from people that knew all of 'em, knew all of these things. And they would help me, and I learned it very, really well so that I could take the exam and pass it. It took about two years to do nothing but concentrate on that. And by concentrate, this is, I did it in my spare time, like on Sundays or something, I did, nothing to do, or nothing to do, but... whenever I could find time, I had the book, textbook with me all the time, so I'd go from page to page. And it took me two years to do it, then I finally took the exam, and I passed it. Now, there's five people in the state of California took that exam that time, and I was one. And after that, after we got through, we would sit around and had coffee, and I'd say, "Well, what did you think of that slide on number, microscope thirty-five?" And they said, "Oh, that's malaria, such and such." And you're supposed to identify whatever it is. That's malaria, plasmodium vivax or something like that. So I, and all the answers they gave me didn't match with what put on there, so I said, "Oh my god, I flunked it." So after the written and the practical, then we have an oral, and so I got called in for the oral. And I looked around, and I was the only one reporting the oral. Apparently my answers for every one of those things were correct.

So they, and it was a pretty rough oral, because the person sitting across, across the way, were all with PhD, MD, pathologist, everything, from University of California, San Francisco, and just looking at 'em scared me. They would shoot questions at me and I would answer 'em, and then once in a while somebody would blare out, "That's not right. Where'd you learn that?" And I'd say, "Well, I learned in the Kolmer text that had this..." He says, "That's absolutely not true." Well, he was wrong; I was right. [Laughs] And all the rest of 'em knew that, so they, so they were pretty good to me. Then the chair, not the chair, the director of laboratory services in the state of California, he was right there, and whenever things got out of hand he would calm 'em down. He would say, "Mr. Uchida, you do other things besides laboratory field. Would you tell us about that?" So I explained to 'em I taught at San Jose State and judo." Then everything calmed down, then we'd go back again. So I passed the exam, and when I got it, I was the only one that passed it in the whole state of California. It was, it's one of these tough exams that they don't want a layman to get, get that...

TI: Right. And so were you the first one to pass it?

YU: No, there were, others had passed it.

TI: But it was a huge barrier to entry, though.

YU: Oh yeah.

TI: I mean, the whole year, you were the only, that year, you were the only --

YU: Yeah, I'm the, that one year, that year I was the only one.

TI: Which is, I suppose, if you're a businessman, that's a good thing, because you don't have much competition because it's too hard to get.

YU: [Laughs] Yeah, but you don't start right away, but you have a license. So with that license, I, some people knew I had a clinical laboratory, others didn't. I just kept it, and an opportunity came when, in 1957, a lady had a small medical laboratory for sale, and she was selling it because the laboratory was not making any money. And I said, "Well, I'll take it off your hands, but I don't have any money." She says, well she wanted to sell it badly. I didn't know how badly until she started telling me. She said, "I'll sell the laboratory to you." I said okay. "How much do you, how much can you afford?" I said, "I can't afford too much. I don't make too much." Said, "I'll tell you what. I'll sell it for you for seventy-five dollars a month and three thousand dollars until paid in full." And I think the interest was about three or four percent. She made it a small interest. So I said, "Okay, that sounds good." And I looked at the laboratory and everything, and equipment alone was worth more than three thousand dollars, so I said okay. So I got started in the laboratory business, and July 1, 1957, I went to all these doctors that I used to do emergency for at nights at O'Connor Hospital, and it was in the area and I said, "I bought a laboratory and could you help me?" And they said, "Oh sure." And they were very good about these, they sent patients for blood counts, urinalysis, stuff like that.

TI: And before they would send 'em to you, what would they do before that?

YU: They'd send 'em to the hospital.

TI: Okay. And how would you compare with the hospital lab? I mean, what would the difference be?

YU: You come right to the laboratory, we'd take, we'd take some sample right away, and we would send the report that day to the doctor.

TI: So from a doctor's standpoint, it was better.

YU: Better, because service was right there.

TI: Whereas hospitals, they didn't really care.

YU: Where at the hospital, it was the same guy that was doing all that work.

TI: Okay, so good. Okay. And so you start with this one lab.

YU: One lab.

TI: And it sounds like it was pretty successful.

YU: Well, I think we were successful and the reputation, our reputation got out there. And the thing was, at the beginning it was very difficult because I, like on Sundays, I was on call by myself because it's my own laboratory and I didn't have enough money to hire anybody. So it was my call, and if they called me at ten o'clock in the morning I'd go out, get the blood sample, take it to the lab, do the work, give the doctor the report that day. So he was happy. And so the reputation got around that you got good service and good work, and with time other doctors were getting started in a new medical area, and they'll say, "Yosh, I'm moving up to Campbell and there's three or four of us are going to pitch in and build a new medical center." Says, "Would you like to put a laboratory in?" And I said sure. So I would go there and start a laboratory.

TI: And so how many laboratories did you end up doing?

YU: Forty-one.

TI: Forty-one laboratories. And so how many people were working for you at that point?

YU: Four hundred and seventy-five.

TI: So this was a large business that you were running.

YU: Yeah. And we went from Fresno all the way up to Stockton, and then across to the Bay Area to Berkeley and all the Bay Area, San Francisco, down the peninsula.

TI: And what eventually happened to this business. Is it still running? Or what did you do with it?

YU: No, a guy came and wanted to buy it. And after looking at all the problems that we might have, I sold it to him.

TI: And how long, when was this? When did you sell this?

YU: In 1989.

TI: Okay, so quite, twenty, over twenty years ago.

YU: Twenty years.

TI: Wow. Okay.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.