Dorothy Natsui

Natsui was born in Kahului, Maui, Hawaii, the daughter of Harukichi Natsui and Moto Maeda Natsui.^[3] Both of her parents were born in Japan.^[4] She visited Japan in the summer of 1927, with other Hawaii-born teenagers of Japanese parentage.^[5] She attended Maui High School, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Illinois. She earned her bachelor's degree and her medical degree at Loyola University Chicago,^[6][7] where she was one of four women in her graduating class.^[2][8] After World War II, she studied electroencephalography at Bellevue, Hospital, and child psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University.

Natsui served an internship at a hospital in Janesville, Wisconsin,^[9] and held a residency at Queen's Hospital in Honolulu.^[2] She opened an office in Kahului in early 1938,^[10] and in Wailuku later that year,^[11] She was an active member of the Maui Japanese Civic Association in 1939.^[12] In 1940 she joined the University Japanese Club in Honolulu.^[13] She presented a paper at the Honolulu County Medical Society meeting in October 1941.^[14]

She was a child psychiatrist with the Hawaii Board of Health's Bureau of Mental Hygiene^[15] from 1947^[16] to 1949.^[17] In 1966, she was named director of the child guidance outpatient clinic at Kauikeolani Children's Hospital.^[18] She was sometimes called upon to examine criminal defendants.^[19][20] She lectured on mental health topics, such as sexuality,^[21] stress and relaxation,^[22][23] and fear,^[24] to women's groups and professional organizations.^[25][26]

• "Residues of Early Father-Child Conflict" (1970, with Clyde L. Rousey)^[27]

Natsui married psychologist^[28] Fred Earl La Fon in 1954;^[29] he died in 1963.^[30] She died in 2005, at the age of 96, in Honolulu.^[31] Her gravesite is with her husband's, in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.