Pulmonologist Dr. Elizabeth Tam helped push for statewide smoking ban

You might not recall her name, but Dr. Elizabeth Tam was the face of the state’s smoking cessation ad campaign, a real-life pulmonologist who championed respiratory health and advanced legislation in the 1990s for a statewide smoking ban.

She was also a dedicated educator, who chaired for 15 years until retiring in July from the Department of Medicine at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, where she taught for nearly 30 years.

In an ad for the Hawaii Tobacco Quitline, Tam shared with the public what personally motivated her to dedicate herself to the cause: the loss of her intelligent, educated father — a four-pack-a-day smoker who couldn’t stop smoking — to metastatic lung cancer.

Although a nonsmoker, Tam died Oct. 9 at The Queen’s Medical Center of lung cancer, the very disease she tried to prevent. She was 68.

(The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 10% to 20% of lung cancer in the U.S. occurs in nonsmokers. An increased rate of adenocarcinoma, a type of lung cancer, has been found in Asian women who have never smoked. Secondhand smoke, radon and air pollution are other causes of lung cancer in nonsmokers.)

“She was the quintessential academic quadruple threat,” JABSOM Dean Jerris Hedges wrote to the medical school ohana. She cared for many patients in her pulmonary practice, researched the impact of vog exposure on Big Island residents and helped oversee health disparities research programs for the medical school, he said.

“She was an exemplary educator who taught in the classroom, at the bedside and in the larger community as a tireless spokesperson for lung health,” he wrote.

Hedges asked the JABSOM ohana “to acknowledge the loss we are all experiencing and the gift of aloha we have all received from Liz.”

Tam was the second Native Hawaiian to chair the department, which houses the school’s largest graduate medical education program.

“Dr. Tam was well regarded in tobacco prevention, and in environmental circles for her studies on vog and respiratory health,” said Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo. “She also worked on anti-vaping and youth vaping issues.”

Lola Irvin, DOH Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Division chief, worked with Tam.

“She was instrumental in helping pass in 1999 Act 304, which created the Tobacco Settlement Special Fund … when Attorney General Marjorie Bronster sued the tobacco industry,” she said.

Tam made sure “part of the settlement monies would go for serving the people of Hawaii who were smoking and need help to quit smoking, and the youth in particular from ever starting to smoke,” she said.

“Act 304 and other laws that passed are really part of her testimony and legacy of what she’s done for the families of Hawaii,” Irvin said.

The funds went toward the Hawaii Tobacco Quitline, prevention for youth and community-based organizations in every county to help people quit smoking and vaping.

“She was just a brilliant, generous person with a humble approach to anyone she met and a deep sense of integrity about what she was doing,” Irvin said. “She had a really quick sense of humor. I miss her laughter.”

The American Lung Association in Hawaii is naming an award after her — the Dr. Elizabeth Tam Breath of Hope Award — for her work as an “influential researcher for lung health and an incredible supporter of the Lung Association, tobacco control and vog research,” said Pedro Haro, the association’s executive director.

Born May 15, 1953, in Hono­lulu, Tam grew up in Kaimuki in a modest household and lived in public housing for a time.

“Those humble beginnings really shaped her, seeing how systems and social determinants of health really play out,” said her daughter, Lauren Grattan. “The thing about Mom that comes across, she never wanted to break boundaries just for herself. She made sure that others could come along with her.”

She reviewed other people’s work, supported other researchers and did clinical outreach, anti-smoking and asthma camps for youth, she said.

Grattan said her mother also worked closely with other physicians on end-of-life care, resulting in videos on hospice and palliative care to demystify and to make the transition to hospital and hospice care and to facilitate end-of-life care at home.

Tam began her undergraduate studies at the University of Hawaii and graduated from the University of California, Davis. She attended medical school at UC San Francisco and trained in Boston.

She was board-certified in both internal medicine and pulmonary medicine.

Tam met her husband, Mark Grattan, at medical school. They married, lived in Boston and California, but she always wanted to move home, her daughter said.

Tam got that opportunity in 1991 when her husband, a heart surgeon, took over the heart surgery practice at Straub Medical Center.

Tam joined JABSOM’S faculty in 1992, teaching for 29 years and chairing the Department of Medicine for the last 15. She taught and mentored premedical and medical students throughout her career there and was “recognized as a caring mentor,” the school said.

Tam, a “vivacious and articulate speaker,” was often called upon by the media to share her expertise and gave of her time to serve the community, JABSOM said.

In an October 2020 speech at the JABSOM Women in Medicine Speakers Forum, she said, “My philosophy in all this is, as a mom, a teacher and a physician, you get so that people don’t need you anymore. You push for this independence and empower them. That’s my goal. That’s generally how I’ve operated.”

Tam is also survived by son Ryan, a pulmonology critical care specialist; sisters Keola Saunter and Lois Farr; brother Kaeo Tam; a grandson; and aunt Patty Williams.

A celebration of life will be held, but details have not been finalized.