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TI: Well eventually, my appointment as a fellow ended. It was to be for one year from July to June, but I stayed on an extra two months because Dr. Linton wanted some extra help. So finally, we left Boston at the end of August, and we drove back, and we stopped in Chicago for a day to visit with the Fukudas, and then we drove straight back to the West Coast. I can still remember one of the most beautiful sights was the seeing the Grand Tetons. You know the New England States have low hills and low mountains, and it was so nice to see the mountains of the Rockies again.

We came back to Ontario, stayed with my folks for a few days, and then came into Portland and came back to our house that we had. And the next month or two, I was busy applying for hospital privileges, getting an office started, getting my instruments for surgery, and a lot of little things had to be taken care of, the licenses and so on. By this time, I had taken the national board examination which you had to have to qualify for a license, and I obtained a license to practice in Oregon, in Washington, and also in California because I really didn't know where I was going to start practice. When I first started working in Portland, I decided to stay here. I was the first trained vascular surgeon in the State of Oregon, and at that time, many of the surgeons didn't believe that vascular surgery would stay. But of course, it has now become a separate specialty from the general surgery.

[Interruption]

TI: After our return from Boston, it took us several months for us to, for me to get settled into my practice. My first office was sharing space with an orthopedic surgeon by the name of Dr. Orville Jones, and I rented a single room from him and shared his receptionist who was a very charming nurse by the name of Marge, and she used to book all of my appointments for me. This went on for two or three years, I believe, and I was waiting for the Lloyd Center to open which was, of course, the first major shopping center, and they had planned to have a doctor's office in this complex. So when this was opened in 1962, I moved into the office in Lloyd Center which was a good location in that it was centrally located because I applied for privileges at many hospitals which was scattered throughout the city. And I was on the staff primarily at Saint Vincent where I had trained, but also at Good Samaritan, Emanuel Hospital, Physicians and Surgeons, and several others around town, but also I did work at outlying hospitals such as in Vancouver Memorial, Oregon City, and of course, I had applied for academic status at the University of Oregon where I taught students and residents and also operating privileges at the Veteran's Hospital because they had a staff of students and residents. Well, as time went on, practice began to get busier, and my working hours became longer, and I found myself neglecting my family to the extent that I really felt guilty and felt badly about missing my children's birthday parties. I would have dates to go out to dinner with friends or to have friends come over for a dinner, and I would not be able to be there. But nevertheless, I felt that it was important to carry on my work, and I chose to go academic in my work meaning that I would keep records, accurate records of all the procedures, follow up on the patients to see what the long term results were and to record it, and then to tabulate series and write reports and apply to various meetings, societies where I could present my data. It was also important in our academic world to publish, and of course you had to have a series of patients of certain kind of work that you do, certain operations in order to report these.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.