The Bookaholic Podcast is the ultimate audio haven for passionate readers, curious minds, and unapologetic book lovers. Hosted by Deirdre Pippins, each episode dives into the world of storytelling through author interviews, genre spotlights, literary trends, and honest book chats that feed your reading addiction. No matter the genre, there’s something here to spark your next favorite read.
Learn more about and join the growing community of fellow bookaholics who believe there’s no such thing as too many books at www.book-a-holic.com.
This Episode
Tom Olson’s Daughters of the Islands tells how six island-born nurses shaped health care in Hawaii before statehood, in their own words. Olson interviewed the women 25 years ago and promised not to tell their stories until they had passed away. On Books and Looks, he talks with host Blaine DeSantis about the women and why he waited.
Tom Olson is a psychiatric nurse who spent much of his career as a nursing faculty member and university administrator, with roles at the University of Hawaii and California State University San Marcos. He lived in Hawaii for 15 years, and his earlier book, Handling the Sick, is an award-winning history of nursing.
The conversation covers Chiyo Miyabara, on duty at Honolulu’s Japanese Hospital (now Kuakini) the morning of Pearl Harbor, who kept speaking Japanese to her patients after the U.S. military took the hospital over and banned it; Eleanor Silva, who went to nurse at the Kalaupapa leprosy settlement on Molokai at 18; and Josephine Duvauchelle, denied tenure a month after winning a University of Hawaii teaching award, who earned a master’s degree, came back and won it. Olson also explains why “talk story” made the interviews possible and what today’s nurses can take from these women.
