Redondo Beach resident earns national recognition for UCLA program

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Mitsue Yokota, 35, (Redondo Beach) a career advisor and well-being program coordinator in the student affairs office at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, was one of four national winners chosen by the Association of American Medical Colleges for planning a strong and effective series of programs for Career Development Month.

Yokota hosted numerous career development events, including resident roundtable discussions; lunchtime specialty information sessions; a panel discussion about careers in global health; a workshop to help students evaluate their educational experiences and use information to make career decisions; and a workshop about self-directed specialty exploration.

The AAMC judges praised the “intentional way these career programs were couched in a larger effort to address student wellness and build community,” and how the comprehensive activities “addressed non-traditional career paths, such as global health.”

A 1998 UCLA undergraduate alumnus, Yokota joined the medical school’s student affairs staff in 2010 and recently earned her UCLA doctorate in education. 

“Mitsue defended, finished and filed her doctoral dissertation in education while working 60-plus hours a week to ensure a stellar career development month,” praised Meredith Szumski, director of student affairs. “Our students love her and love this program; she’s truly an asset to UCLA.”

Yokota is married to Robert Ribitsch, a South Bay native.  He runs Omicron Engineering, a Torrance machine shop that produces high-precision components primarily for the aerospace industry.  His father founded the shop, which remains family-owned and operated, in 1970.

A native of Japan, Yokota was born in Tokyo and immigrated to the United States in 1981 as a young girl.

The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA is an internationally recognized leader in research, medical education and patient care. The school has more than 2,000 full-time faculty members, almost 1,300 residents, more than 750 medical students and roughly 400 Ph.D. candidates.