The Family Medicine Interest Group at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) has earned a national award recognizing the group’s efforts to inspire future family physicians through community service, clinical exposure, education and leadership.
JABSOM was one of 21 groups nationwide selected for the honor of a 2026 Program of Excellence by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).
Cultivating community engagement
Through JABSOM‘s H.O.M.E. (Homeless Outreach and Medical Education) Clinic, students participate in community service projects throughout the year. The group also organizes educational opportunities, including an event featuring a physician subspecialty panel to introduce students to the range of careers within family medicine.
Second-year medical student Kyle Tsujimoto helps lead the group, noting that its activities reflect a larger culture of community engagement he discovered after coming to JABSOM from California.
“JABSOM as a whole does a really great job of fostering students to actually really care about being involved in the community,” Tsujimoto said. “The faculty and the culture that they’ve developed, we come in and it’s just something really amazing that we gravitate towards.”
He added that the experience has helped him better understand the people and communities he hopes to serve: “It’s been a really great way for me to do what I can to get involved and to really learn as much as I can about the populations and the people and the communities that we really aim to serve.”
Tsujimoto credits previous student leaders and faculty, including H.O.M.E. Clinic Director and Associate Professor Jill Omori, with building the foundation that led to this year’s recognition.
“I feel like this is really a reflection of that culture that’s been developed and the hard work that my upperclassmen, my predecessors, have put into building this organization into what it is,” he said. “It’s really inspiring to see how special the opportunities that we have here are. I really just hope to be a part of spreading that and continuing that for future classes at JABSOM.”
