Taryne A. Imai, MD, found herself at a professional crossroads in 2022. She had been working for seven years as a thoracic surgeon, most recently as Clinical Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, a world-renowned academic medical center, where she specialized in thoracic oncology, cancers of the chest, including lung cancer. Despite reluctancy to return to her home state of Hawaii, where she grew up and attended college and medical school, an American Lung Association report swiftly influenced her decision to return home
“I was actually leaning toward not going back to Hawaii,” Dr. Imai said. That changed when she received an article featuring data from the American Lung Association’s annual State of Lung Cancer report, with Hawaii ranking last among the 50 states for early lung cancer diagnosis.
“That article changed my mind immediately,” said Dr. Imai. “Here I am in California, doing all these great things—robotics, streamlining pathways for care and lifesaving surgery. And in my hometown community where my parents and friends and family are, they are struggling in that space.”
Dr. Imai also lost her grandfather to lung cancer when she was in high school and remembered how quickly his disease progressed after diagnosis. “I thought, ‘Who is going to make that better? And who better than me?’”
Changing Lung Cancer Pathways
Today, Dr. Imai is the Thoracic Surgery Program Director at Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, where she helped create and now oversees the Advanced Lung Institute. In less than four years, the Advanced Lung Institute has significantly improved lung cancer care and treatment for patients, most notably by significantly shortening the time between lung cancer diagnosis and surgical treatment.
At Queen’s, Dr. Imai helped developed a thoracic surgery program, implemented artificial intelligence to identify high risk nodules more quickly, and introduced advanced robotic systems for the evaluation of lung nodules, a small mass of dense tissue on the lung that may indicate lung disease, and minimally invasive surgery.
The new technology has enabled the hospital to implement a single anesthetic pathway for some patients with high-risk nodules, allowing them to undergo anesthesia once for a biopsy, evaluation and surgical removal of the nodule, if needed. These advancements have helped reduce the overall average time from lung cancer diagnosis to treatment from 88 to 29 days, saving almost three months of wait time,” said Dr. Imai.
This progress is especially important for residents living on the islands of Hawaii, where accessing specialty care often requires taking days off from work and traveling by air; challenges similar to those faced by individuals living in rural areas throughout the U.S. “My vision has been that if we can achieve success in Hawaii, perhaps it can serve as a pathway to decreasing diagnosis-to-treatment times in rural communities as well,” said Dr. Imai.
Overall, Queens Hospital has “doubled the number of lung cancer surgeries, which means we’re detecting these cancers earlier. And our survivorship clinics are bursting at the seams. People are not dying of lung cancer in Hawaii at the rates they used to,” said Dr. Imai, “and our patients no longer have to go to the mainland for treatment. They can stay close to their family and friends.
“Cancer is such a challenging disease to have,” she continued. “A lot of times we as physicians feel very helpless in this battle with cancer. With cancer surgery, there is an opportunity to give patients a cure; if we can catch it early enough, the chances are better.”
In addition, she is working with primary care physicians to encourage early screening for eligible individuals; typically, adults aged 50-80, with a smoking history. She is also working to change the stigma associated with lung cancer and urging healthcare providers to look beyond traditional risk factors.
Dr. Imai works closely with the Pedro Haro, executive director of the American Lung Association in Hawaii, to improve lung cancer education and access to care throughout the state. Dr. Imai is an American Lung Association Regional Board member, and she and Haro serve together on Hawaii’s Early Detection Lung Cancer Screening Task Force. “It’s been completely pivotal working with Pedro and the Lung Association in Hawaii for so many reasons,” said Dr. Imai.
“The Lung Association balances science and medicine. I’m very science and data driven. The Lung Association is the softer arm: they’re out in the community, providing support and resources. Together, we are providing patients in Hawaii with the comprehensive care that they need.”
Helping people and improving outcomes for patients reaffirms Dr. Imai’s decision to move to Hawaii. “My time at Cedars-Sinai was amazing and heavily resourced. It gave me the opportunity to be cutting edge; to see where the field could be pushed forward. And that’s where I learned all these things that I was able to bring back to Hawaii,” said Dr. Imai.
“I’ve never regretted my decision to go back home.”
Blog last updated: March 10, 2026
