Medical student learned lesson at an early age: 'Health goes beyond medicine'

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一心多用是Juan Medina-Echeverria的一种生活方式. He's a husband, a father of two and a second-year medical student living near Chicago. 他经常一边在跑步机上慢跑一边听课, 每一小时的讲座相当于跑6或7英里. “我这是在一石二鸟，”他说.

Exercise wasn't very accessible during his childhood in his native San Francisco Bay Area. The lower-income community where he grew up lacked amenities such as tracks, 篮球场或公园.

“很难找到一个安全的锻炼场所，”他说. “我一生都在与体重作斗争."

胡安的父母, 他们都是非法移民, also urged him and his two siblings to keep a low profile and avoid activities such as sports, 这可能会引起不必要的注意. 他的父母做着最低工资的工作，没有医疗保险. 因为他们的财政不稳定, 他们经常选择便宜的, 加工食品胜过健康食品. 胡安说 this contributed to his father's high blood pressure diagnosis in his 30s. 他的母亲最近被诊断出患有2型糖尿病.

“我们知道这是个问题, but we didn't have the knowledge to talk about it because there was nobody to lead the discussion,他说. “健康不仅仅是药物. 它从社区层面开始."

他在很小的时候就明白了这一点. 当胡安上小学的时候, 他的父亲因为没有保险而推迟了面部下垂的治疗. 越来越多的关注, Juan consulted a medical school textbook at school and wondered if his father might have Bell's palsy, 一种会导致面瘫的神经紊乱.

他最终说服了父亲接受治疗, 翻译时医生证实了他的业余诊断. “这很酷，也很有趣，”胡安说. 就像一个谜一样."

这种感觉激励胡安追求医学, a journey that began in high school when he became a certified nursing assistant. He began taking pre-med courses in college but put them on hold when his wife became pregnant with their first child. 而不是, at 19, 他获得了护理执照，并继续上课, ultimately graduating with a degree in public health/epidemiology from the University of California, 加州大学伯克利分校. 他继续攻读生物医学硕士学位, 2021年, 他被罗莎琳德·富兰克林大学的芝加哥医学院录取, 位于城市北部郊区的一家私人机构.

"I bring a different perspective to medicine because I have real-world experience in the hospital,他说. “你担心的是病人，而不仅仅是疾病. 这是医学的艺术."

敏锐地意识到这种差异, 在他的学术生涯中，胡安一直在寻求领导角色, serving as the first Mexican American president of his medical school class, as co-president of the Latino Medical Student Association and as a member of the medical school's diversity advisory committee.

He also has been selected as a scholar in the 美国心脏协会's 全国拉美裔心血管合作组织, a mentoring program that aims to promote the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular diseases and stroke within the Hispanic community.

赫克托耳Rasgado-Flores, a professor in the medical school's department of physiology and biophysics who also serves on the diversity advisory committee, 胡安的驱动器, 耐力, 他的成功离不开智慧和谦逊. “他已经成为他所在社区的榜样, 我们很荣幸他能来到我们医学院,拉斯加多-弗洛雷斯说.

Rasgado-Flores hopes Juan – and others like him – will inspire young people in under-resourced communities to pursue careers in health care.

People connect much better to health care professionals who "relate to them either by culture, 语言或生活经历,拉斯加多-弗洛雷斯说. "The shame of not having enough diversity in medicine and in higher education is that we are losing a very important resource of life experiences, richness in thinking and creativity that comes with those life experiences."

除了他的领导角色, in 2022, Juan completed an internship in orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, 明尼苏达州. As a doctor, he hopes to bridge the gap between cardiovascular and bone health. "You can't exercise and live a healthy lifestyle if your bones and muscles aren't working properly,他说.

渴望对年轻人进行医疗保健教育, Juan and his classmates staged a "mini medical school" for dozens of fourth and fifth graders in an under-resourced community in North Chicago. 在每周的节目中, 从2021年11月到2022年2月, 他们向孩子们展示如何进行心肺复苏术，并谈论健康话题, 从心脏健康到精神健康. (胡安10岁的儿子乔瓦尼(Giovanni)参加了后续活动.) "It was great to see them laughing and learning in a fun environment,他说.

事后, 孩子们得到了白色的医用大褂, 哪一个, 胡安说, 知识的象征, 纯洁与信任. “我们希望这能激励他们探索医学事业, so there is more representation and hopefully better health outcomes for people in underserved communities."