Venice Family Clinic’s longest-serving volunteer physician, who trained countless doctors in community medicine, has passed away, leaving an indelible impact on the Clinic community.
Fresh out of completing medical school in San Francisco during the 1960s, the young doctor Jimmy Hara moved back to his hometown of Los Angeles for his residency at the Veterans Administration. On top of his schoolwork during medical school, he’d spent his time volunteering at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic. So when he returned to LA, he wanted to continue his work at community clinics, providing medical care to people in need.
That impulse turned into a 50+ year relationship with Venice Family Clinic where he became one of our longest serving volunteer physicians, a 30+ year member of our Board of Directors, and Chairman of the Board during Venice Family Clinic’s transition to a Federally Qualified Health Center. Since 1971, Dr. Hara has been a pillar of the Clinic as he both treated patients and trained generations of doctors in practicing truly compassionate care.
“He knew where he was needed and that’s where he went,” said Dr. Hara’s son, Kyle Hara.
In the wake of Dr. Hara’s passing on May 14 at the age of 81, it is with both a heavy heart and immense gratitude that we remember his contributions to Venice Family Clinic and the impact he made on patients, medical staff and all who knew him.
Born to build a better world
Hara was born in a Japanese internment camp in 1945, and his family later resettled in Los Angeles. He attended UCLA for his undergraduate degree during the 1960s and participated in the legendary free speech movement led by political activist Angela Davis. He told Venice Family Clinic in 2020 that with his family’s history, he felt compelled to make a difference from his earliest years.
That led him to medicine, which he saw as a calling that would enable him to help others. He began volunteering at the original Venice Family Clinic in 1971, which operated in a UCLA dental office after hours. As he advanced through his residency and positions with Kaiser Permanente, he began bringing his students and other doctors along — a commitment he kept through the decades.
“At the end of my day on Tuesdays, I would go to Venice Family Clinic,” Hara previously told us. “The residents who were assigned to me usually wanted to join. So I took them with me. It became known as Kaiser Night at the Clinic. I would take my residents, the obstetrical interns, all of the USC and UCLA medical students, there in clerkships with me. At any given time, I would have about a half-dozen medical students working with me.”
Living his principles
Eventually, Tuesday night volunteering at Venice Family Clinic officially became part of the community medicine rotation at Kaiser. Wherever Dr. Hara became a teacher and a leader, including positions at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, he helped bring students to Venice Family Clinic so they would understand both the importance and unique practice of community care.
For example, Cesar Barba, MD, Venice Family Clinic’s current associate medical director, recalls Dr. Hara telling Barba and his fellow trainees: “You are the front lines of medicine. You are going to be the first doctor many people are exposed to. Make sure you understand the importance of that.”
Barba also shared that during the Tuesday night “Hara rounds” as they became known, Dr. Hara would explain how to speak with patients in ways that felt understandable and approachable, how to find and address the root of a medical problem – not just the symptoms – and how to treat every patient with equal dignity and respect.
Outside of the exam room, Dr. Hara spent his weekends attending meetings, rallies and protests, trying to make a difference wherever he could.
“Everywhere I went, no matter how large or small the gathering was, he was there,” said Blanca Andres, MD, Venice Family Clinic associate medical director. “I remember being impressed and wondering how he was able to be so generous with his time.”
Dr. Hara lived his principles: that health care is a human right, and that everybody deserves help. The strength of Dr. Hara’s convictions touched every member of the Venice Family Clinic community. His legacy will live on in his students, his patients and with us.