Chapter 04: Japanese Attitudes about Radiation and the Bomb; First Experiences Working in Medicine and with Radiation Effects
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Description
Dr. Komaki begins this chapter with observations about how teachers in her schools avoided negative comments about the United States’ decision to drop the bomb. She notes that, in fact, they said that since the Japanese “started the war” with the attack on Pearl Harbor, “Japan deserved the bomb.”
Next, she talks about her interest in how different people responded differently to radiation exposure, leading to her commitment to be a researcher. She also notes that her mother encouraged her to go to medical school: Hiroshima University School of Medicine, MD in medicine conferred in 1969. She notes that during medical school, she volunteered at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. She did checkups, attended staff conferences, and heard about chromosomal abnormalities and second-generation effects of radiation. Dr. Komaki also met several mentors.
Next, Dr. Komaki talks about medical school and her growing interest in hematology and leukemia patients. She also discusses the medical students’ strike, in which she took part: the students objected to the educational hierarchy and medical culture in Japan. Dr. Komaki shared these objections, which motivated her to come to the United States for her internship, residency, and fellowships.
Identifier
KomakiR_01_20181106_C04
Publication Date
11-6-2018
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Overview; Personal Background; Inspirations to Practice Science/Medicine; Influences from People and Life Experiences; Understanding Cancer, the History of Science, Cancer Research; Cultural/Social Influences; Global Issues –Cancer, Health, Medicine
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
R. Komaki, MD:
The other thing I still remember, when I grew up, my teachers never said anything [ ] bad [ ] about the United States [who] had created, and decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It’s still puzzling to me. [Were they prohibited from criticizing the US?] [ ] They always blamed themselves, the Japanese people. Japan started second war, so we deserved it. But you know, I always talked about …not the atomic bomb, they should not use that atomic bomb [to end the war], and why did they drop it on Hiroshima? One thing [I always asked myself was] how my grandmother [ ] could survive this atomic bomb, although she had acute side effects. But when Sadako was a baby [ ] she was exposed to whole-body radiation. So I puzzled: the babies, while they are developing, their cells are dividing, they are very sensitive to radiation, so they develop malignancy or leukemia. Effects of the radiation are different once your cells already mature, they are less sensitive to any carcinogen. But if they are dividing, those cells are dividing, they are very sensitive to any carcinogen, like atomic bomb or a cigarette, or any carcinogen. [Therefore,] [I wanted] to be a researcher of leukemia [when I grew up].
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
When did you decide this?
R. Komaki, MD:
When she died.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
When she died, okay.
R. Komaki, MD:
When she died, I said [to myself,] ‘Okay, I am going to be a researcher of leukemia or something related to malignancy.’ I wanted to do research. The difference between the people who develop malignancy but not like my grandmother, she was exposed to radiation but never had any malignancy. Why, is that? So I became very, very interested in the research of how malignancy will start. [Research] was my real passion. [ ] My mother wanted me to go to medical school, and so did my father. I was always interested in doing research: sensitivity to carcinogens and epidemiology were very interesting for me. While I worked at the, they called it the ABCC [Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission] … When I entered medical school in Hiroshima --because the medical school in Japan, it takes six years, including two years pre-medical education, pre-medical school education. My parents, they wanted me not to go out of town, so I lived in Hiroshima. I didn’t want to go to Tokyo or anyplace, so I decided to go to Hiroshima University Medical School. While I was a medical student, every summer I volunteered at the ABCC, or RERF later on, doing physical exams for people who were exposed to atomic bomb, including my father and my grandmother, they had to get a checkup. So, summertime, I volunteered and I did blood pressure and also, I was very interested in blood samples. The people who came from the United States, they had morning conference and I had a chance to attend. I was so interested in chromosome abnormality. Dr. Awa, he was checking all the people who were exposed to atomic bomb and developed leukemia. They had abnormalities in the chromosomes, and I was just fascinated. They were very interested in second generation, somebody who could carry the babies but was exposed to radiation, and what will happen in the next generation. The first trimester, they had spontaneous abortion because of the radiation effect. But second trimester, especially third trimester, they carried the baby and if they had microcephaly due to exposure to atomic bomb, so that was a carcinogen, well the abnormality to the baby’s growth.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And just for the record, I wanted to say, you got your bachelor’s in biology in 1965, and this was from Hiroshima University.
R. Komaki, MD:
That’s correct.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And then you continued at Hiroshima University School of Medicine, and then you got your MD in ’69.
R. Komaki, MD:
Correct.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So you were volunteering during that period of the kind of mid- to late sixties.
R. Komaki, MD:
Yes, that’s correct.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay. Also, I just wanted to say that we’re at noon at this point, and I can stay for another ten minutes or so, and then we’ve got another session scheduled so we can continue our conversation.
R. Komaki, MD:
Okay.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So you talked about Dr. Awa. Were there some people at the ABCC who were kind of mentors for you?
R. Komaki, MD:
Yes. Dr. Awa and Dr. Robinson, who was a cardiologist, and Dr. Russell, Walter Russell, R-u-s-s-e-l-l, who came from Seattle, Washington, who was a chair of the Radiology Department. Also, Dr. Bloom, who was a visiting scientist. He was a hematologist, a very famous hematologist, and he was checking all those people’s blood samples, and whoever had abnormal cells floating [in the peripheral blood], he had to do a bone marrow. I always was fascinated to see this blood of the people who were exposed to atomic bomb.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So you must have seen an enormous range of effects at that time, with people coming in.
R. Komaki, MD:
Yes, yes. Right. The person who was the director of the center, he was an endocrine specialist from Yale. He was checking thyroid dysfunction or thyroid cancer, the people who were exposed to atomic bomb. Yeah, he was very, very influential, a very nice physician. I was exposed to all different kinds of side effects from the radiation, and not short-term, long-term effects of the radiation.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I’m not even sure how to ask this question, I mean this was basically a unique experimental population.
R. Komaki, MD:
Yes.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I mean horrible, horrible. What was the state of the science of thinking about this at the time? You know, you had all these different specialists, you mentioned a cardiologist, endocrinologist, all of these people getting together to think about this problem. How did that influence you and the way you began thinking about research questions?
R. Komaki, MD:
I wanted to do research of the radiation effect to human beings, but also, I wanted to treat somebody who developed leukemia. I was originally thinking about maybe I’m going to be a hematology oncologist. So I decided to go to --they called it [ ] Atomic Bomb Research Department in Hiroshima University-- later on, well during not only summertime. There was the time I served as a volunteer at the ABCC, but during my medical school, I started to go to Hematology Oncology section. I was very interested in treating some of the leukemia patients. When I graduated from Hiroshima University, nationwide, we went on strike. The internship, I was supposed to go to be an intern in the Hiroshima University Hospital, but we had to close it. Every university hospital was closed because of the strike.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Why did the students go on strike?
R. Komaki, MD:
Because the [Japanese] government was not paying [a salary] for internships. We had to work free. The other thing was [that the medical students were against the government regarding] the medical education. We had a very strict [medical department system consisting of one professor and chairman], one associate professor and assistant professor. If the professor is there, nobody could argue. If he was wrong or she was wrong, nobody could argue [or correct him or her]. That was a strict system that came from Germany, and all our professors, they were educated, especially pathologists and the surgeons, they went to Germany to run medicine. So when I was a medical student, we had to write German and we had to use Germany [medical] terminology. The cardiologists [who] went to the United States [used] medical terminology in English. [ ] In the United States, we are free to ask questions. That never happened, and the medical students, they hated that system [in Japan]. So we met with [our] professors at the medical school, that we have to change the system to educate medical students, and we went on strike [since the profesors rejected our proposal].
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So you were part of the strike as well.
R. Komaki, MD:
Right. So that means we had to walk out from the university hospital. I had to get the post-graduation education somewhere. That’s why I ended up going to the Medical College of Wisconsin, by the introduction of Dr. Russell. He was a friend of Dr. Youker at the Medical College of Wisconsin, that’s the way...
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
That you got to the U.S.
R. Komaki, MD:
Right.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I think I need to leave it there for today, because I kind of have a hard stop, but we’ve got a lot to talk about next time. I want to thank you so much for your time this morning.
R. Komaki, MD:
You’re welcome. It’s so nice to meet you.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
It’s so nice to meet you too, and let me just say for the record, I’m turning the recorder off at about eight minutes after twelve.
R. Komaki, MD:
Okay.
Recommended Citation
Komaki, Ritsuko MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 04: Japanese Attitudes about Radiation and the Bomb; First Experiences Working in Medicine and with Radiation Effects" (2018). Interview Chapters. 1285.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1285
Conditions Governing Access
Open
