You won't see this senior around at Commencement because she headed home to Maui, Hawaii, to relax for a few weeks before leaving for boot camp at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. Already commissioned, Tanaka is now officially Second Lieutenant Erin Tanaka; a change to which she is trying to adjust. "I'm not used to being addressed as Second Lieutenant Tanaka, I'm used to being Erin Tanaka '05," she said. But with Commissioned Officer Training beginning soon, she won't have much time to become accustomed to responding to her new title.
Go east, young woman
In Hawaii, 6,000 miles away from the Pioneer Valley, not many people have heard of the College, including Tanaka and her family. Visiting Amherst in June of her junior year of high school, Tanaka was fooled by a day of nice, warm weather. Still, she knew it would snow in the winter and was looking forward to it. "I thought snow would be cool," she recalled. "I thought it would be interesting to have seasons, and I didn't realize how cold it was."
Once at Amherst, Tanaka quickly realized that there were more differences from home than simply the weather. "There really is culture shock," she remembered. The food, the people and the lifestyle all necessitated adjustment. Nevertheless, Tanaka realized that Amherst was not representative of the mainland as a whole. "Just like Hawaii is not like anywhere else in the United States, Amherst is not like anywhere else in the United States," she said.
Tanaka came to Amherst intent on majoring in biology, following the pre-medical track and ultimately becoming a doctor. Her plans were fated to change, however. She recalled that during her first year she had a hole in her schedule, and she decided to take Japanese. Finding the department amazing, she decided that she would double major in biology and Asian languages and civilizations (ALAC).
Deciding that the best way to develop her medical skills would be to join ACEMS, Tanaka spent her first Interterm taking the ACEMS course at the College. She also wanted to maintain her physical fitness and spent her first semester here as the coxswain for the women's crew team.
The summer after her rookie year, Tanaka explored the post-college option of becoming a teacher. She worked at Wellesley College's Exploration Summer Program, where she taught sushi-making and swing dancing in addition to completing the administrative work for which she was responsible.
Looking forward to returning to Amherst, Tanaka prepared for an application that would determine the course of her studies at the College. She had heard about the competitive Mt. Sinai Humanities and Medicine Program, which provides one with admission to the medical school during sophomore year of college as long as one signs a contract indicating that one will not take the MCAT or take additional pre-medical coursework.
Thrilled with the prospect of avoiding the MCAT and with the opportunity to further take advantage of the liberal arts courses at Amherst, Tanaka's acceptance to the program prompted her to drop the biology major and opened the door for studying abroad. Her busy sophomore year, in addition to applying to this program, included running for ACEMS, serving as the president of Health and Wellness in Pratt Dormitory and applying for study abroad in Japan.
The following summer, Tanaka found herself working two jobs in the Rainbow State. During the day she worked in advertising at The Maui News, where she learned that regular office work does not suit her. After her regular daily job at the newspaper, she worked from 5-9 p.m. at a hospital in the radiology department, where she engaged in hands-on work with patients, preparing them for x-rays and CAT scans.
Thesis work
After putting in 48-hour weeks, Tanaka was ready to head off to Doshisha University, where she had been accepted to the year-long Associated Kyoto Program. Living with an overprotective, overbearing host mother, Tanaka did not have the ideal living situation. However, she managed to make the best of the situation.
Japan was certainly not all fun and games for Tanaka. She had previously decided that she would write a thesis in the ALAC department on the recognition of homosexuality and AIDS awareness and preventative educational techniques used to prevent the spread of the disease, such as the distribution of condoms.
"I wrote about the social response to AIDS in Japan," she said. "It touches on public health issues that are specific to Japan, the Japanese public health experience. The disease itself is considered a foreign problem, even though Japanese people are affected, so it was really hard to get people to talk." Consequently, she appropriately titled her thesis "Someone Else's Problem: Purity, Impurity, and the Social Construction of AIDS in Japan." While she was in Japan, she spent part of her time tracking down Japanese individuals who were to be interviewed in order to obtain their impressions of the manner in which Japanese people respond to the presence of the disease. She also returned to Tokyo during Interterm her senior year to complete additional interviews.
"It is an incredibly well-researched and original thesis," said Tanaka's advisor, Professor of Asian Languages and Civilizations Patrick Caddeau. "More importantly, Erin has made a meaningful contribution to our understanding of the way notions of racial and cultural cohesion have influenced public policy concerning AIDS treatment and prevention in Japan for the last two decades. The conclusions she draws from her research, first-hand interviews and analysis of television soap operas and public information pamphlets are of great significance and have the potential to contribute to saving lives."
No rest for the weary
After an intense year in Japan, Tanaka was not free to relax during the summer. The Sinai program requires upcoming seniors and upcoming first-year medical students to attend an intense program where they are to learn all of the science material covered in an entire year in college over the course of a few weeks. In the morning, the students went on rotations, and in the afternoon they learned either physics or chemistry.
Because Tanaka was a bit ahead in her studies, she was not required to take the full course load of the rest of the students, so she volunteered at the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Screening Project. The project's objective is to screen the individuals like firefighters and police officers who were at Ground Zero cleaning the debris from 9/11 or at Fresh Kills Landfill, where the debris was deposited. Screening is being conducted to document the development of asthma or other respiratory diseases as a result of the dust and chemicals released at the Towers.
The researchers are tracking many other clinical diseases such as cancer as well as psychological illnesses like depression. Tanaka assisted in the multi-stage project after the completion of the first stage. Her duties entailed organizing the data from the first set of physicals. "Looking at some of the mental health surveys was really sobering because it had been almost two-and-a-half years since the World Trade Center attacks," she said. Tanaka also assisted in the development of protocol and deciding what medical tests to run for the second round of the study.
After an interesting summer in the City, Tanaka returned to rural Amherst after a full year away. It was senior year, and Tanaka had some serious decisions to make. Throughout her time at Amherst, Tanaka toyed with the notion of joining the Air Force, and now she decided to apply. Serving the country is something that has been instilled in her via family members. She currently has two cousins in active duty who have served in the Middle East, and both of her grandfathers were also in the service. Moreover, military service is supported strongly in Hawaii. Even if the Air Force was not going to pay for medical school, Tanaka still would have considered joining. "I feel like the military needs good people," she said. "It shouldn't be something you do because you have nowhere else to go." She decided to apply and received notice of her acceptance right before Nov. 2, Election Day.
The war in Iraq raised some questions for both Tanaka and her parents, but she ultimately decided to join the Air Force, and a few weeks later, around Thanksgiving, Tanaka was sworn in as a Second Lieutenant. Sixth months later, and a week after commencement, Tanaka will be in Alabama for officer training. This strenuous month's schedule includes physical conditioning from 5-6:30 a.m. each morning followed by classroom instruction all day long, where she will learn history, protocols and the ins and outs of the Air Force. As soon as this training concludes, Tanaka will move to New York City to participate in the Sinai program's summer courses of biochemistry, histology and anatomy.
Once back in medical school, Tanaka will resume the life of a normal medical student. However, for 45 days of each year, Tanaka will be on active duty. "Next summer I'll be in Texas for aerospace medicine courses," she said. There she will study the stress that fighter pilots' bodies undergo. In addition, although she is not quite sure what it will entail, she is excited about the NASA component of this program. The other two active duty periods during her time in medical school will be spent trying out different specialties in an Air Force training hospital.
Upon graduation from Sinai, Tanaka will choose either a military or a regular, civilian residency program, and after that she will owe the Air Force four years of active duty. Currently, Tanaka is interested in completing a military residency and perhaps specializing in either anesthesia or emergency medicine.
Tanaka's friend and classmate, Kelly Ott, knows that wherever Tanaka ends up, she will succeed. "I've always known her to be a hard worker and someone who is dedicated to whatever she undertakes; her perseverance with work is impressive-I don't think I've seen that much tenacity in anyone else," Ott said. "Erin's always been friendly and a good conversationalist. I know she'll make a great doctor, both medically and personally to all her patients. She has a great head on her shoulders, and if anyone can make it through the Air Force, she can."