When Jeff Hayashi isn’t studying slides under a microscope, there’s a good chance he’s tinkering with brass instruments or playing music. A new alumnus of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM), Hayashi has always found joy in the details—the way tiny parts come together to create something bigger, whether it’s a French horn or a cancer diagnosis.
“I like art. I play a lot of music and one of my hobbies is brass instrument repair,” said Hayashi. “Pathologists tend to have very niche hobbies.”
Pathology might seem an unlikely destination for someone who once dreamed of becoming a trauma surgeon. However, as a JABSOM graduate preparing to enter the UH Pathology Residency Program at The Queen’s Medical Center, Hayashi said this path has never felt more right.
A perfect fit
Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, Hayashi left the islands to earn his biology degree at the University of Portland but always knew he wanted to come home.
“For some of us, we just love being in the islands and that’s where our family is. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else,” he said.
After college, he went straight to JABSOM—saving time, but arriving with less clinical experience than many of his classmates. He wasn’t familiar with the wide variety of physician specialties, but there was one that caught his attention early on.
“I always liked histology. I always liked understanding things on a cellular basis, and when I talked to pathologists about that, it was almost second nature to them as well.”
During his third-year clinical rotation, it all began to click.
“I did some pathology rotations and really compared them side by side and just did pulse checks… in what settings was I happiest or did I feel most fulfilled?” he said. “Did I feel like I was really contributing to the team in a meaningful way? And I thought that I could do that in pathology.”
He even found similarities between his hobby of spotting hidden objects and his new specialty. “It’s like when there’s a picture of a field and there’s a rabbit hidden and I like to play those games,” he said. “In pathology you’re not gonna see things unless you know what you’re looking for.”
Timely match for Hawaiʻi’s health needs
This year, Hayashi and fellow JABSOM alum Carley Kida matched to the Queenʻs Pathology Residency Program, welcome news amid Hawaiʻi’s 43% shortage of pathologists, especially on neighbor islands.
Hayashi begins his residency in July, and will focus on surgical pathology, examining tissues and identifying cancers. He’s also interested in transfusion.
“It’s a lot of pattern recognition,” he said. “But when you can tell the team, ‘I think this is cancer,’ or ‘Your margins are clear’—that’s really valuable.”
He added, “It makes you feel really special… being able to see things that other people can’t see.”
