Notable Alums

Kouichi

Specialty: Internal Medicine

Graduation Year: 1952

Kouichi Tanaka

Kouichi Tanaka, M.D. ’52, is an emeritus medical oncology/hematology faculty member at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He is a master of the American College of Physicians.

After receiving his bachelor’s and medical degree from Wayne State University, Dr. Tanaka completed an internship at Los Angeles County General Hospital, and residency and fellowship at Detroit Receiving Hospital.

He began his academic career at the UCLA School of Medicine in 1957, then joined the faculty at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in 1961 as chief of the Division of Hematology. He also served as associate chair and acting chair of the Department of Medicine, director of the Hematology Research Laboratory, and helped train more than 450 internal medicine physicians.

Dr. Tanaka has written approximately 300 research publications and made important contributions in the study of erythrocyte metabolism and to the understanding of hemolytic disorders.

He was named professor emeritus of Medicine at UCLA School of Medicine in 1999. In April 1998, Dr. Tanaka became a master of the American College of Physicians.

Among his other honors, Dr. Tanaka received the WSU School of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Award in 1981, the Sherman M. Mellinkoff Faculty Award at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and was named an LA BioMed Legend. The Department of Medicine at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center established the Kouichi R. Tanaka Distinguished Teaching Award in his honor.