Rodney T. West, M.D. was born on the island of Maui in the then Territory of Hawaii. He graduated from the Punahou School in Honolulu and attended Northwestern University in Chicago, where he earned his Medical Degree. He returned to the Islands, spent 18 months as an intern and resident at the Queen's Hospital and then went into a private practice in Honolulu. He joined the United States Naval Reserve in January of 1940. Twenty months later, September 5, 1941, he was called to active duty and was stationed at the Medical Dispensary on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor and was there on the morning of December 7, l941. He spent the rest of World War II on Johnston Island in the Pacific and at various Naval Air Stations on the American mainland. At the end of the war, he returned to Honolulu and on March 26, 1946 was discharged from active duty. In September of 1949, he resigned from the Naval Reserve as a full Commander. Then, after practicing on the Big Island of Hawaii for a year, he returned to Honolulu and joined the Obstetrics and Gynecological department of the Straub Clinic.
In December of l956, after delivering at least 5,000 babies - and other things, he retired from the practice of medicine. In l963, he served as the President of the Hawaii Medical Association and in 1975, he helped found and was the first president of the American College of Physician Executives. PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR PAGE. LINK