As a little girl, I remember quickly ruling out becoming a lawyer as a potential profession because I didn’t want to take the bar exam. Even as a young girl I knew early on that the bar exam was a dreadful exam. I remember wanting to be a teacher, then a nurse, then a pediatrician. Long story short, attending law school was not in my realm of possibilities until later in life.
Now as a JD/MPH-er, and amongst a handful that I know of (including those that are graduated and soon-to-be graduating) in Hawaiʻi, I feel like it is time to really put my intentions and hopes to paper (or at least in writing). Who am I? What can someone do with a JD/MPH? What’s the specific skill/niche that a JD/MPH educational background provide?
After earning my MPH, and with the next step being law school, many people told me, “oh so you left public health for law?” Or, “she’s a lawyer now,” as in, not a public health person anymore. But really, I am passionate about the intersection of both public health and law.
I get excited about addressing Native Hawaiian health by addressing legal issues and I come with a specific perspective because of my JD/MPH background. It wasn’t until relatively recently where social determinants of health has been catching on as foundationally important to understanding how to address health problems. And even in my current work, by just mentioning “health” and “law” or “doctors” and “lawyers” in the same sentence, most people automatically think I’m talking about medical malpractice law.
But no, I’m talking about community defined, community-based, community driven and organizing around health harming legal issues that can be addressed at all levels from the ground up.
What does this look like in Hawaiʻi? To me, I see the possibilities of the JD/MPH combo to be rooted and from a kanaka maoli perspective. The cultural significance of the creation of the Hawaiian people being born from Hāloa, inherently links the livelihood or health of kanaka to land. So for me as a JD/MPH-er, protecting our natural resources is ultimately to improve the health of our lāhui.
In other words, he mea māmā aloha ʻāina.