| Message from the President |
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| Written by JMSA Admin | |||
| Friday, 12 June 2009 00:00 | |||
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President’s Message On behalf of all of the Board Members of JMSA I want to welcome you to our site and to our organization. When I joined JMSA in the 1980’s it was more or less a fraternal organization whose ambitions were modest. The purpose was to bring together health care practitioners who had a common ancestry or interest in Japanese healthcare practices for a sharing of information and friendship. Our financial resources were meager and the main outreach into the community was our scholarship programs which were more honorary than monetary. Thanks to the individual contributions of several of our members, particularly Drs. Ashikari, Shinya and Shimmyo, we reached out to Japanese exchange students and medical students of Japanese origin in America, but our overall contribution to the Japanese community was serving Japanese patients as healthcare practitioners in our respective healthcare practices. In the 1980’s it would have been difficult to even imagine how we have evolved and grown into the organization we are today. Thanks to the fund raising efforts of our board members, particularly Drs. Kuwama and Yanagizawa, we have called on the Japanese corporate community to help fund a number of community projects. Under the guidance of Dr. Maki Kano, our Japanese Community Outreach Program has been able to give grants totaling $30,000 last year to a number of very worthy Japanese related groups to help them contribute to the Japanese community in New York. We are hoping in the future to be able to look beyond NY with this project. Under the leadership of Dr. Anzai, our scholarship program has also grown, as have the monetary stipends that go with the awards. We are reaching out to a growing and active group of students who not only receive the awards but are becoming active members in JMSA. Many of the students participated in representing JMSA at the Central Park Japan Day as well as the Sakura Festival in Brooklyn. Several of them, as well as several of our members, have participated in our lecture series at the Nippon Club which is aimed at the Japanese lay community in New York. Other activities of our organization are our Annual Dinner in April, which this year was attended by over 200 people, and our Christmas party which Lydia Horiguchi arranged at the Italian American Citizen’s Club. In addition we had a member’s only Dim Sum party last summer which we will repeat August 16 again this year. Our golf outing is planned for June 27, which I am sure will be lots of fun also. Despite the economic crisis which has affected all of us in one way or another, we are continuing to thrive as an organization thanks to the hard work of all of our members. If you are not already a member, we welcome you to join. If you are a member, we welcome you to get more active. As your president I will do everything I can to see that we continue to grow and give back to the community.] Sincerely, Jean G. Furuyama, DDS President, JMSA
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| Last Updated on Friday, 12 June 2009 19:26 |