As a freshman at Stanford University I was trying to decide between engineering and pre-med. In order to decide between the two majors, I decided to volunteer as a Spanish translator at the Willow Clinic, a local primary care clinic for the indigent population. As a translator, you are taught to speak in the first person, pretending to be the doctor and the patient. It was a surreal experience that allowed me to be literally in the middle of the patient-doctor relationship. I was drawn by the symbiosis of the experience – a patient asking for help, and a doctor will to help. After 4 years of being a translator, I applied for medical school at Harvard University where I began the long journey to becoming a doctor.

It was at Harvard Medical School that I learned about the multifaceted nature of medicine. In addition to pursing a rigorous traditional medical training, it was there that I took classes on complementary and alternative medicine and obtained a Masters Degree in Public Policy at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. My interest in public policy was founded on my wish to help the masses. As a doctor, I can help those in my immediate reach, but as government official, I can help communities. In 2006, I interned at the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee in Washington, D.C. But my impetus to have a healing touch to those immediately around me superseded my grandiose civic ambitions and I decided to continue with my path in medicine and attend UCSF Medical School for residency.

But the most important event of my life was in 2010, when I met my now wife, Lauren. She was a critical care nurse in the intensive care unit at Cedars Sinai. We were both relatively new in our positions, which is maybe why we gravitated towards each other. We fell in love, got married and now have Three wonderful children Vivi, Ellie and Nico; and three loving dogs, Clooney, Charlie and Carlitos. We love to travel, eat, exercise and spend time with family and friends.