[ DR. RICHARD Y. SAKIMOTO / 1906-2004 ]
Obstetrician delivered
12,000 babies in Hawaii
Dr. Richard Y. Sakimoto, 98, a pioneering Hawaii obstetrician and gynecologist who delivered 12,000 babies before he stopped counting in 1989, died April 26.
He was Hawaii's first board-qualified OB-GYN when he began practice in 1938 and was the founding fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
"He was a living legend in obstetrics and gynecology in Hawaii," said Dr. H. Lorrin Lau, an OB-GYN and longtime associate and friend of Sakimoto.
Dr. Richard Sakimoto: The UH alumnus also founded an annual billfishing tournament
Sakimoto's parents lived in Hawaii, but he was born in Japan in February 1906 while his mother, Maki, was visiting her mother after the Russo-Japanese War. She left him and his 3-year-old sister with their paternal grandparents, and they were sent to Hawaii when he was 5.
He attended Royal School, then McKinley High School, which was "truly amazing" because children in those days were expected to work instead of go to school, said Lau, whose mother was one of Sakimoto's classmates.
Sakimoto once wrote that McKinley's principal and teachers in four years gave him "valuable guidance and inspiration to seek high things," Lau said.
He was a charter member of the McKinley Chapter of the National Honor Society, student body president and a colonel in the ROTC.
He attended the University of Hawaii and in 1929 was accepted to Washington University's School of Medicine in St. Louis. He spent 10 years there for his internship and residency training.
Returning to Hawaii, he "overcame a myriad of difficulties" in establishing his practice, said his son, Richard.
His father often took no money from his patients, he said, describing how one returned years later, paid him and said, "Now they are officially my kids."
"He was a generous, really nice, good guy," Rick Sakimoto said. "He was very nonpretentious."
Sakimoto built the landmark Medical Arts Building, opening it in December 1949 with his office on the ground floor.
Sakimoto was chief of OB-GYN service at the Queen's Medical Center from 1949 to 1964, an associate clinical professor at the UH John Burns School of Medicine and a member of the UH Alumni Association Board of Governors and the UH Foundation's President's Club.
He was a past president of the UH Alumni Association, and he received the association's 50 Years of Distinguished Service Award.
He also was honored with a Special Citation for Distinguished Service in 1983 by Washington University, where he was known as "Hawaiian Dean of Medicine."
Aside from medicine, Sakimoto was Honolulu police commissioner from 1960-65 and owner of the local Asahi Baseball Team for one or two seasons.
He loved sportfishing and giving away his catches, his son said. He was captain of the 55-foot sport fishing cruiser Kamome, which he built and kept at Kewalo Basin. He was a founder of the Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament, which he often entered and won.
"He was a tough fisherman," his son said, recalling a trip when he was about 11. "Fish smell and blood were everywhere. ... Then my dad hands me this sandwich he just made, and it's just covered in fish scales."
Lau recalled meeting the Kamome when it came into Kewalo Basin during a hurricane in 1982. "Everybody on the boat was leaning over the side vomiting. There was Sakimoto standing eating saimin as though nothing happened."
Sakimoto was a scholar and author and was involved in politics, working with former Gov. William Quinn and community leaders to foster business between Hawaii and Japan after statehood, Lau said.
He continued his medical practice until age 92 and was mentally sharp and physically active until his death, Lau said. "He lived right and was tough to the end."
Survivors besides his son include his wife, Edna; daughter, Eda; and granddaughter, Olivia.
Services will be at 4 p.m. Saturday at Nuuanu Congregational Church, 2651 Pali Highway. Aloha attire. Inurnment of the ashes will be at 10 a.m. next Monday at Nuuanu Memorial Park.
