Awards

Advertiser Staff

Hawai'i doctor gets Tonga job

Dr. John Corboy, former director of the Hawaiian Eye Center, has recently been named interim chief of Eye Surgical Services for the Kingdom of Tonga. For 18 years, Corboy and his staff at the Hawaiian Eye Foundation have conducted annual charity eye missions to the Pacific island nation of 100,000.

When Tonga's only eye surgeon left the country last year, Minister of Health Dr. Viliamu Tangi appealed to Corboy and the foundation to provide medical and surgical eye care to the country for four years, until a replacement could be trained.

The Hawaiian Eye Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization. All missions are staffed by volunteer doctors, nurses and technicians who pay their own way to areas in desperate need.

Army group honors Akaka

U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka is the recipient of the 2002 Outstanding Legislator Award from the Association of the United States Army. Akaka, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, was honored for his efforts on behalf of the Army in Congress.

"Senator Akaka has worked in a bipartisan fashion to fund a robust national defense and moved legislation to boost the readiness of America's armed forces," said retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan, president of the association and former chief of staff of the Army.

Scholarship winners named

The Chinese Women's Club of Honolulu has announced its 2002-2003 college scholarship recipients. They are: Nicole Fujie, University of Hawai'i-Hilo, a veterinary medicine major; Joanna Lee, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, a travel industry management major; Krystal Lee, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, a computer science major; and Steven Lum, University of Hawai'i John Burns School of Medicine.

Businessman earns award

Hawai'i businessman Douglas Q.L. Yee has been awarded one of the American Lung Association's highest awards for service. Yee, who serves as president of the Lung Association, was presented with the national Volunteer Excellence Award for Innovative Team Projects at the Lung Association's meeting in New York.

He was given the awards for his efforts to bring more medical research money to Hawai'i through the National Institutes of Health. Yee initiated his efforts by forming a Hawai'i team of researchers, legislators, nonprofit health organizations, local businesses and University of Hawai'i representatives. Together they created a medical research forum and invited members of the National Institutes of Health to the Islands. Based on the Hawai'i model, NIH officials plan to visit other "unfunded" research states to see if projects can be developed.