Samantha Garcia, Master's Year, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and UCLA Anderson School of Management
My mother and I sat inside a bare room surrounded by officers watching our every move, their hands placed delicately over the pepper spray and baton that embellish their hips. We are among other families waiting to commence a bus ride that will take us deep into the penitentiary, past legions of barbed wire fences and security towers. When we finally reach our destination, we are assigned a table where our entire four-hour visit will take place. As a sea of inmates in identical blue garments make their way in, I see my mother’s eyes glisten as she spots a familiar face. I smile and wave hello to my older brother, who, although worn down by years of incarceration, is still cheerful to see his loving family.
Twenty years of inquisitively examining the environment of prison visiting rooms led me to a question as a young adult: why were the majority of inmates people of color? During visits, I found myself thinking beyond the walls of the prison visiting rooms, yearning to develop a critical understanding of the systemic forces that contribute to this circumstance. As a college student studying health promotion and disease prevention studies at the University of Southern California, I discovered the observations I made converged with health from a broader perspective. Just as many inmates were people of color, I learned that those disproportionately burdened by preventable disease were also minorities.
In two seemingly separate worlds, I found myself learning about social injustices and racial disparities in the realm of health and within the justice system. Through my mother’s engagement with support groups, I was exposed to solutions community members could make, observing how these groups use their knowledge of social justice issues to be advocates for disadvantaged communities. Given my interest in the field of health, I was drawn to a career where I could emulate this mission and address social concerns to promote healthier communities. For most of my undergraduate studies, however, I did not have a model for what this looked like until I began working at St. John’s Community Health, a federally qualified health center in the under-resourced community of South Los Angeles. Determined to use medicine as my own tool to address social issues, I became motivated to pursue a career as a physician for communities that face health inequities.
As an organization, St. John’s merges social justice and health by viewing healthcare as a fundamental right and a catalyst for socioeconomic and racial justice. At the clinic, I was able to practice this intersectional approach as a health educator and manager of a pediatric nutrition education program aimed at addressing the high prevalence of childhood obesity in South Los Angeles. In fostering a relationship with the families enrolled in the program, I learned about their lives and the multifactorial challenges they faced toward achieving a healthy lifestyle. I came to realize that patients confronted many of these constraints before they even entered the four walls of the clinic; they existed in the places where they lived, ate, and worked. I witnessed the impacts these barriers made when parents expressed doubt in the feasibility of implementing the nutrition knowledge they learned within their community. Eager to help them navigate this barrier I developed a class at a local Latino grocery store where, with clipboards in hand, participants and I walked through aisles inspecting foods. Together we practiced skills I had taught in class such as calculating the sugar content of foods and identifying whole grains using familiar Latino food products. This novel idea taught me how important it is to communicate openly with patients and mobilize resources found directly in their community to address health needs.
My experiences as a health educator motivated me to learn about the clinical approach to improving health in underserved communities. I began shadowing physicians at St. John’s and observed how they served as patient advocates cognizant of how social determinants affect overall well-being. As I listened to countless patients discuss concerns ranging from poor mental health due to their undocumented immigration status to how chemicals from janitorial work exacerbated their asthma, I was impressed by how physicians tackled these issues by bridging their clinical knowledge with compassionate care. Reflecting on how the physicians at St. John’s used their role to integrate medicine and social justice aligned with the mission I envisioned for myself, which is inextricably linked to my experience of having an incarcerated family member.
Currently I am a MD/MBA candidate in the Charles R. Drew University/UCLA Medical Education and PRIME-Leadership and Advocacy programs at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. As a student in these unique programs, I am cultivating the clinical knowledge and skills needed to meet the complex needs of diverse communities and explore both the social and biological determinants of health. I am proud to be a part of a medical school that gives me opportunities to become a physician that shares the same values as the physicians I once shadowed. In addition, with the opportunity to pursue a MBA, I hope to someday improve the quality and accessibility of healthcare services for patient populations like those I worked with at St. John’s. With these experiences I am confident that I am developing into a future physician that will maintain the big picture perspective I developed while visiting my brother in prison after all these years - thinking beyond the walls of clinics and hospitals and encompassing the communities my patients call home in my approach to patient care.
About the Author: Samantha Garcia is a fourth year MD/MBA candidate at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and UCLA Anderson School of Management. She is completing her MD/MBA education as a LA Care Elevating the Safety Net Scholar and Consortium for Graduate Study in Management Fellow. Samantha is a proud student in the UCLA/Charles R. Drew University Medical Education and PRIME-Leadership & Advocacy Programs, which are providing her with the knowledge and skills to become a physician leader for under-resourced communities. Prior to beginning medical school Samantha earned her Bachelor of Science in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Studies, a minor in Health Care Studies, and a Master of Science in Global Medicine from the University of Southern California (fight on!). Ultimately, Samantha’s goal is to become an OBGYN and work with under-resourced patient populations. As a future OBGYN, she hopes to combine her medical and business knowledge to improve the overall quality and accessibility of women's healthcare services for communities made vulnerable.
About the Work: In this writing piece learn how Samantha’s experience with having an incarcerated family member led her to develop an interest in addressing health disparities from a social justice oriented lens. With this piece Samantha also hopes to shed light on the unique circumstance of having a loved one in prison and underscore this year’s LMSA Journal theme of “haciendo ver lo invisible.” This writing piece is a variation of the personal statement that Samantha Garcia used in her 2019 AMCAS application.
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