SALUD is supported by Texas Mutual Workers Compensation Insurance Company.

Be open to saying yes to things that you don't.

Not even sure how you can make it work.

Just keep going.

Find people that you can lean on that will tell you it's going to be okay.

Take help when it's offered.

It does not make you weak.

Hola Welcome to the Salud.

I'm Melanie Mendez Gonzalez, your host, on this episode of Salud, our focuses on health and Latinas who are leading in this vitally important field in San Antonio.

We'll meet a doctor who has dedicated her career to studying health issues that affects Latinos in South Texas.

And we'll meet a Latina who is leading the county's new health department.

But we begin with a doctor who focuses her efforts on preventing diseases that affect the Latino community.

Vamos.

Dr. Ochoa thank you for having us at your save clinic today.

I'm honored to have you here.

Let's start by you sharing with us.

What do you do?

So I am by training a board certified vascular surgeon.

And that means I take care of all the arteries and veins in the body, in the neck and the chest and the belly in the arms and the legs.

I take care of people who have bad circulation to their legs.

You've heard that people with diabetes sometimes are predisposed to having wounds that don't heal, and that may result in imputation.

And that's often the result that diabetes also affects the blood flow to the legs.

And so as a vascular surgeon in San Antonio and noticing the needs of San Antonio, what I also do is I run my own practice, my own business called the San Antonio Vascular Endovascular Clinic, started in 2018, and I focused my efforts in serving those areas in San Antonio.

That one don't have the specialty care vascular surgery, but those who have the most health inequities and the health inequity I follow are diabetic amputations.

And so I decided to put my clinics in the zip code in San Antonio with the highest diabetic amputation rates.

Rural areas are also areas with health inequities.

And so we go to two rural areas south of San Antonio as well.

That's the important work for our community.

Tell me about how you wanted to become a doctor.

I was in high school.

Like math, science.

I was always good at all that.

But I honestly did not know what I wanted to be.

And honestly, being a doctor was never really crossed my mind until when I was a senior in high school.

The University of Texas, Pan-American, which is now UT and Baylor College of Medicine, got together, offered an eight year scholarship for seniors in high school in the valley.

And so it was the opportunity of a scholarship that, to be honest, my father insisted I apply for it even when I said, But, Dad, I don't even know if I can be a doctor.

It's like it's free money you're applying.

But it put me on a path where people supported me.

And so what?

I went to Baylor College of Medicine was on this eight year scholarship.

So you mentioned your dad.

You mentioned that there were mentors along the way.

Tell me about them.

Who who did help guide you?

Sure.

So as Latino family, you know, our parents are big, big supporters.

And there is no doubt that I could not have made it through medical school without my parents.

Both of them were.

My dad was a farmer in the Rio Grande Valley and my mom was a migrant worker.

And they vowed that their all their kids were going to get a college education.

Not everyone has that kind of support.

Other mentors along the way, I'm going to tell you where people that you would not expect.

So, you know, people who don't look like us.

I had mentors at Baylor College of Medicine that I often ask, Why are you wanting to help me?

And I'll be honest with you, they're white men who supported me, who created the scholarship, who helped me find research projects.

And I never understood initially why I was hesitant to take that help, because as a Latina, I'm strong enough willing to do it on my own.

And so some advice I would give is take help when it's offered.

It does not make you weak.

And often times the people who support you, so the people you would never expect.

So how would you describe your leadership style today?

I think it's a little bit of everything.

One, I like to lead by example.

I mean, if I'm not willing to help my patients out of the car, into the bathroom, out of the bathroom, and how my front desk and my medical assistance supposed to do it too.

So leading from example, from what I do, take care of patients.

So the beginning all the way up.

Also one of leadership with compassion.

One thing that is important, as you mentioned, is not only do I as a physician struggle with taking care of sick people, but my entire staff does.

They see people at their most vulnerable stages, and sometimes that's not great, but that wears on them, too.

And so allowing them that compassion to sometimes they may not be in a good mood.

And this is hard.

I like to allow them to have that grace with themselves that this is not easy.

What we do is not easy.

I guess I try to say I try to lead depending on the situation that's at hand.

And sometimes that means you just have to do it right.

And so that was one of that examples is create and save you create it on the south side because there was not enough care here.

There's not enough specialty care here.

And at some point, I just had to prove now it can be done.

And so we focus our entire practice in the underserved areas.

West side, east side, South Side.

You're doing this work now.

People are watching.

Young Latinos are watching.

What do you hope for them?

What do you hope for Latinos who go into medicine?

Love that question.

But I hope for Latinas who are up and coming in medicine to be future doctors, surgeons or any other health care worker is, I hope that they hear you can do it.

You deserve to be here.

I'm here to help you.

You're smart enough.

You're good enough.

So what's your advice to them today?

My advice is, if it's in your heart, if it's in your heart to serve your community, if that's what really brings you passion.

Health care is for you.

I love that.

I'm very curious.

What is driving your passion to serve specifically the South Side of San Antonio?

When I first moved to San Antonio, I actually worked in hospitals up north all the way to down south.

And I witnessed not only different types of patients, how sick they were, the outcomes they were having more heart attacks, strokes, amputations of very, very young patients, 30, 40, 50 years old.

And I knew it was not right.

But I also saw that the care delivered from physician to patient was different.

And when I began to ask myself why is this?

Why do we have different types of care?

Why do we have different types of outcomes in a large city?

And it's when I learned about the history of San Antonio, about the history of racism, segregation and redlining of San Antonio, where we actually had intentional disinvestment in the areas of San Antonio that suffer the most today.

So south side, west side, east, that if you look at a 1930 map of red light in San Antonio, the exact same map of diabetic amputation rates, it's the exact same map as COVID death rates.

It makes me a little bit mad.

It makes me mad that it's not right and it's not fair.

And I believe that to overcome that disinvest meant we have to put as much effort and intentionality to changing it as it was created to create it.

So that means we have to make up for some for some things that had not happened for decades and decades.

I want to invest in the South Side to create that ecosystem for health so that it's easy for people to make those choices, those healthy food choices.

Let's go out and walk in the park choices.

Let's go out and not be lonely because we have fun events on the South Side or on the west side that bring people out that are affordable.

How do we create that ecosystem for health?

And so my vision is bigger than just direct health care.

It's how do we build that environment for health?

That makes me excited thinking about your vision for that.

Thank you so much for sharing your story and your passion.

Dr. Ochoa Thank you.

Let's start by you sharing with us.

What do you do?

I am the inaugural director of public health for Bear County and the first to lead this department because it's a new department, the Department of Public Health.

Last year, in 2022, the county judge and commissioners court decided that Bear County would be best served by having a defined, cohesive public health entity.

So they created the Department of Public Health.

And I'm fortunate to be able to lead it.

We often hear Latinos are the first of many things.

But what leadership lessons have you learned as being the inaugural director?

I've worked in public health in Bear County for about six years, have worked in public health as a career for about 23 years, and so have had lots of leadership lessons along the way.

I think the biggest thing for me is that I've been able to draw on my own personal experiences growing up and experiences in my family and apply those to the communities that we serve in public health, people that have been made most vulnerable by historical inequities, by oppression and marginalization, and lots of other barriers that that can negatively affect people's health.

There was poverty, you know, growing up with not a lot of money and no access to care.

I have you know, I got my shots at the free clinic.

We visited food pantries and we got, you know, hand-me-down clothes from the church and things like that.

And so having grown up like that, it's been a privilege to be able to have gone through all of the degrees that I did and have the opportunities that I've had to be able to serve the communities that I'm still a part of that you know, that I once was a part of.

So really understand what it's like to be a user of the system and being able to to use those services and know what it's like to sit on the side of the table.

And so I'm really fortunate to be able to take that experience and that understanding and then be able to provide those services or help facilitate the provision of those services from this side of the table as well.

It's a real privilege.

Thank you for sharing that part of your journey.

Dr. CORDERO It makes me wonder in this non-linear journey that you've had to be the inaugural director here.

Were there mentors along the way that helped guide you through this path?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, there's been so many you know, I've had lots of folks who were CEOs of hospital systems who guided me, who were, you know, hospital administrators who taught me how to work through that know, because it's people it's hard to basically enter public health and then go into a hospital system and learn how to use that that sort of organizational infrastructure.

But I think the most important mentors in my life have been my peers, other women, other Latinas who have similar backgrounds and similar struggles.

We're not all the same, but because we come from cultural similarities, we come from economic similarities.

We've gone through first gen as first in college.

Students are as first generation PhDs, you know, people who are the first in their families to get PhDs.

It's it's important to be able to lean on those women and to be able to for them to lean back a little bit.

How would you describe your leadership style?

Oh, servant leadership, definitely.

You know, situational at times.

You know, every every situation calls for for a different approach to how we lead.

But at my core, I am a servant to our community, to my family.

You know, how I really try to live every day in my career and in my life and how can I be of service to others that you're good at having the title of Doctor is A is a whole thing for Latinas in itself.

What does it mean for you?

It's huge.

I wear I wear it on my on my chest, my, you know, my name plate, says Dr.. And there have been several very important women who have said, you know, if they can't see us, they can't be us.

And so it means a lot that we're able to say, yes, my to introduce myself as Dr. Andrea Guerrero, because, as I said, I'm first of my family to to get that Ph.D.

But Latinas are one of the most underrepresented demographics in the country when it comes to attaining doctoral degrees.

Less than 1% of all doctorates conferred in the United States go to women who are Latinas.

I was just recently at a conference, an academic conference, and you said in those rooms and you're usually the only one.

And so being the only one and making sure that I'm representing myself and my county and my city and as I'm introducing myself as Dr. Laura is, it's really important.

And it's changed the trajectory of my children's education, of my entire family.

So what do you hope for the future of Latinas in public?

I hope that there are more of us.

I hope that we continue to grow because there are certain things, there are certain issues of cultural intuition, legitimacy of lived experience, of people who understand why some health behaviors are related to our culture, why language is important linguistically, how are we serving people in communities that speak other languages besides English?

And so I do think that the more diversity that we have, the more people that we have that bring different perspectives.

And I don't just mean racial diversity or ethnic diversity, but like people that speak different languages, people that come from different neighborhoods in San Antonio, we're very different in terms of our experiences and where we came from and how we got here.

So I really would like for people just to keep getting those degrees in public health.

So back to the topic of Latino leaders, when when I say the term Latino leaders, what do you think of.

Oh, I think of of almost every like level on the spectrum of Latina.

I think any woman that strives to be the best and strives for excellence, she's a Latina leader.

She is someone who is saying, let's look, I'm showing up as my best self.

I don't think it has to do with your title.

It doesn't have to do with your degrees.

I think it's the person that says I'm representing myself and my community in the best possible way.

The advice I usually give to people is lean on your networks, look for your networks, and I know some people don't have them, but but you know, you can find people who can be your village.

Thank you, Dr. King, that so much for sharing all of that with us.

Thank you for your service as the inaugural director of public health.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

What motivated them and got them through their initial Dr. Ramirez we’re here at UT Health San Antonio.

Tell us about what do you do?

Thank you, Melanie.

Well, I am the professor and chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences and we focus on health issues impacting Latinos throughout South Texas.

And, you know, just try to really make lives better through prevention and different types of work that we do that are really focusing on the community.

That's a big job.

So tell me, where did you get your education?

Where did you go to college and post graduate here?

Oh, gosh, that's a long time ago.

I, I started at the University of Houston and I got an undergraduate degree in psychology.

Then I went and worked for a year in Laredo and became a South Texas health planner, which really allowed me to visit different counties throughout South Texas and focusing on different health issues.

And during that time, I met some people who were part of the school of Public Health in Houston, part of the U. T School of Public Health, and really kind of got intrigued in some of the work that they were doing.

And they said, well, why don't you come back to school?

And so I did.

I went back and I worked on my master's, got a master's in public health there in Houston, and then started working for Baylor College of Medicine.

And my first job at Baylor was actually a health communications person assigned to working with the Hispanic community in the navigation area of Houston.

And while I was doing that work back, back in the day, we we rewrote grants and one of the grants focused on talking about high blood pressure.

And so we did a program called Ella Simmons the Silent Killer, as it was affecting a large portion of our community.

And so somebody saw me and saw my work and they said, you know, you really need to go back and work on a doctoral degree.

So they recruited me to work on their study and at the same time gave me that opportunity to work on a doctoral degree there.

And also within the School of Public Health in Houston.

Those are some great opportunities down for a girl from Laredo.

That's right.

That's right.

You know, just even going to school U of age back in the day, you know, my father was a little concerned.

It was dorms that just turned coed, you know, And he says, I'm leaving you here.

Don't you want to go to that Catholic school, the girls school down the street?

So, yeah, it was it was a big difference.

You know.

What was it like for you to grow up in Laredo?

But tell us about your family.

Okay.

Well, I'm one of five.

I had four brothers and my parents were middle class.

My dad was an aircraft mechanic for the Laredo Air Force Base.

And my mom was a stay at home mom.

But on weekends, we we'd go work out at the ranch.

We would help and round up cattle.

And, you know, I've always enjoyed horseback riding and, you know, being out in the country.

So going from spending time with your family on the ranch to being the director at the Institute for Health Promotion Research, what have been some of your biggest challenges?

Some of the biggest challenges where working with different individuals who had higher education degrees and I had at the beginning, you know, that was important.

And that's kind of what motivated me.

And I. I had a wonderful mentor that encouraged me.

He says, Do you want to be part of a program or do you want to lead a program?

And if you want to lead a program, you really need to go after your doctoral degree.

And so and he supported me in that and gave me that opportunity.

And so that truly made a big difference.

But then at the same time, I started feeling a passion for my own community.

As I got into this field, I didn't see very many people like me or that were dealing with Latino issues, health issues in particular, you know.

And I said, Where are we in this?

I attended different national meetings.

You know, sometimes I was the voice of one, you know, in a larger group, mainly of men representing other population groups.

But I was trying to be the voice for all of us.

And so I think just those experiences have helped me really become the leader and really encouraged our institute to focus on what are those disparities that are impacting our residents in South Texas, you know, and not only in South Texas but nationally.

And when I started to think national, I weren't after some funds from the National Cancer Institute and developed the first study there was called the National Hispanic Leadership Initiative on Cancer for Hispanics.

You mentioned the challenges that you overcome have made it clear that you are today.

How would you describe that, your leadership style?

My leadership style is really a servant leadership style, and I can't take credit of where we are today.

It was really taken a lot of teamwork and my team is amazing.

Many of them have been with me for many years now and it's just that family that we have developed and all of us saying we've got to do a little bit more, we've got to find a way to make a change.

You definitely understand that role models and mentors are important.

You mentioned one mentor before, but have there been other role models and interest for you throughout your career?

I definitely make.

My mom and dad have just been my first.

You know, we're just seeing how hard they work to make sure that they provide for the family and giving this the opportunities and, you know, in a very modest way.

And then there were some of the people I've met on committees.

These are just amazing leaders that I got.

I had no idea that this job would open up those opportunities for me to to meet to meet them.

These are researchers in cancer researchers who were working in different parts of the country and everything.

And so it was it was truly amazing to come across some of those opportunities.

So what advice would you give to Latina women who want to go into the field that you are and make a difference to that community the way you do it?

I think, you know, part of it is be open to saying yes to things that you don't, not even sure how you're going to make it work.

Right.

I mean, I think that was the biggest thing for me.

And I always just say yes.

And then afterwards.

Right.

And I'd say, yes, how am I going to make this work?

But, you know, I go back and I do some research or I find, you know, someone who knew something about it, and I would be able to come up with a plan that could make it work.

And so, sure, not to be afraid of taking that leap and trying something new I think is really critical.

The other is it took a lot of midnight oil to to get to where I am right now, you know, and a lot of sacrifices both from our family and from the point of view that I wasn't always able to be at certain things that I would have liked to have been at.

Right as I got it to finish project or we had a deadline that needed.

And so learning how to prioritize, you know what my family was always important in my faith.

Those two things you know, I'll never let go of.

But I knew when I could could sacrifice a little here to make sure this got done.

And so that it would be that I learned how to prioritize making sure your time with your family, because it also takes a spouse or a significant other that is willing to support you.

And I've been very fortunate to have those opportunities.

So in this thing, I want to ask you about you you've mentioned it earlier, was that sometimes you were the only one in the room, the only one who looked like you.

What advice would you share for the for the women Latinas who find themselves in that same situation?

I think that one of the things is to learn to speak up because it is part of our culture where we're kind of quiet to begin with.

And you hear those syndromes who are like, you were going to raise your hand and you didn't, and somebody else said what you were going to say.

So.

So if anything, I've learned that I need to speak up and to speak up quickly as soon as I think about it, even though it might not fit in the flow, but to make sure that you get your thoughts out there because if not, somebody else is going to put it in your corner.

I was just thinking that why didn't I say anything?

So I think I've learned how to speak up a little bit more and not be quite, quite so modest.

That's fantastic advice that and thank you for sharing your story with us.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Wonderful efforts.

Our guests today are making and keeping South Texas healthy.

We're so proud of all of our Latina leaders and health.

That's it for this episode of Salud.

Thank you for spending time with us and we'll see you next time.

Nos Vemos Salud is supported by Texas Mutual Workers Compensation Insurance Company.