Antonio Garcia, one of 12 children, is in his third year at the UCR School of Medicine. Garcia, who grew up in Anaheim, Calif., thought he would be a professional boxer like several of his siblings, but a program for gifted students at his high school set him on the path to college at University of California, Irvine. There, a chance encounter with a group called Chicanos and Latinos for Community Medicine pointed him toward a doctor’s degree.
At UC Irvine, “medical students and physicians would come and talk to [Chicanos and Latinos for Community Medicine] about health care disparities,” he recalls. There, he learned that “five percent of the physician workforce is Latino even though Latinos make up [a plurality] of California residents ... that got me thinking about going into medicine.”
Garcia was initially attracted to UCR because it is one of only three medical schools in the country to offer a joint M.D./Master’s degree in Public Policy. He was drawn to this opportunity because it would provide a way for Garcia to serve his community beyond simply practicing as a physician.
“As physicians, we can’t really control much of the environment [around patients,]” he says. The combination of both degrees would allow someone to help shape broader factors like air and water quality or access to health insurance that would affect the health of community members.
Garcia has now shifted back to focusing solely on medicine, but still has many reasons why it is important to him to be a medical student of UCR.
He describes how important it is to him to increase Hispanic representation in medicine and provide comprehensive quality care to a community that has sorely lacked it for so long. But when asked for a single reason why he chose UCR the answer was short: “I just wanted to be with my family.”
"My parents moved to Riverside around 11 years ago," Garcia said. "At the time I was living with my aunt -- after that I went to [UC] Irvine in Orange County for pre-med in biological sciences, but when I was applying to med school I wanted to live somewhere that was closer to my family."
He makes time whenever he can to be with his family and hopes to set a good example for his younger siblings, who appreciate how difficult it must be for him to balance the workload of medical school with spending time with his family and on extracurricular activities.
Garcia also does his best to make a difference at school with his peers. He makes handmade notes for friends and fellow classmates every year.
“If I know they’re struggling, I write positive notes, or if I know they’re doing well, I just put a heart,” he says. “Being in medicine is stressful, so I try to boost their spirits.”
Antonio Garcia was featured in the Politico Magazine’s story of the UCR School of Medicine. To view his full feature, visit https://www.politico.com/magazine/gallery/2018/01/18/riverside-fighter-doctor-what-works-000771
