First cohort graduates from Kauai Medical Training Track

News admin June 30, 2026 0 Comments

First cohort graduates from Kauai Medical Training Track

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The first cohort of medical students graduated from a program created to address Hawaii’s rural health care needs.

The first Kauai Medical Training Track cohort officially graduated from the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine, or JABSOM.

Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, who own property on Kauai, committed $10 million to the program in 2022, in response to a shortage of physicians on the Garden Isle.

The program fully covered the students’ tuition, fees, transportation, and lodging for all four years of medical school in exchange for a commitment to return to Kauai for at least four years after residency to practice medicine.

“It was wonderful to see our cohort start off as brand-new medical students, grow throughout the years, gain clinical skills. and integrate into the community,” said Dr. Travis Hong, Director of Rural Training at JABSOM. “To see them really get to know their preceptors, work alongside them, and finally graduate as physicians has been an incredible thing to witness.”

KMTT graduates will now go off to other schools to complete their residency programs before returning to Kauai to practice.

The graduating cohort includes six new doctors who each plan to specialize in different disciplines, with plans to focus on community health.

Dr. Kirra Borrello will be doing an Internal Medicine residency at the University of California Los Angeles.

Dr. Jamie Emoto, who was raised on Kauai, will also head to UC school system with plans to practice Pediatrics at UC Irvine.

“When we started this journey in 2022, I was incredibly excited to learn medicine from the very people who inspired me – including my childhood pediatrician, who became my preceptor,” Emoto said.

Dr. Erin Evangelista is doing a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Loma Linda University.

Both Dr. Brent Fujimoto and Dr. Ivana Yoon will stay at UH for their residencies, specializing in Orthopedic Surgery and Primary Care, respectively.

“By proving we can successfully train and retain doctors directly within a rural setting, we now have a replicable model that we hope to expand to Maui, Hawaii Island, and Molokai,” said Dr. Sam Shomaker, Dean of JABSOM. “This is how we ensure that all communities across our state have access to exceptional, locally rooted care.”