In the United States, 20 percent of the population is Latino. By 2050, it’s expected that one in three people will identify as Latino. But less than 7 percent of doctors come from a similar background.
Dr. Michael Galvez, a board-certified pediatric hand surgeon at Valley Children’s Hospital in Madera County, is on a mission to change that number. In 2022, he cofounded National Latino Physician Day, which is aimed at raising awareness and is part of an effort to increase the minority health care workforce.
Galvez brought his effort to UC Merced, where he spoke on the appointed day, Oct. 1.
“It’s not just about patient-by-patient care but the whole health care system,” Galvez said. “We need to have respect for culture and language and lived experiences.”
The lack of minority doctors means more than just a potential language barrier. Galvez pointed to significant health care barriers, inequalities and poorer outcomes in the Latino/Latina/Latinx patient population.
“The lack of Latino physician representation provides additional barriers to culturally and linguistically concordant care, leading to worse health care outcomes,” the National Latino Physician Day website says.
His own route into medicine was untraditional, Galvez said.
“My parents are from Lima, Peru. We spoke Spanish at home,” he said. And he wasn’t a stellar student in high school.
“I had a 2.8 GPA. I had A’s in PE,” he said. But he attended a community college, where he got to experience working in a lab. “I saw the work I was doing was valuable,” he said.
Galvez finished his undergraduate years at UC-Berkeley, then attended medical school at Stanford University. He completed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute research fellowship, then finished his residency in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Stanford, where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society.
He completed training in combined hand and microvascular surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle and completed a second fellowship in pediatric upper extremity surgery at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas.
“Of the 100 surgeons where I trained, only three were Latino or Latina,” Galvez said. “I was one of the only doctors who spoke Spanish at Stanford. Those numbers are terrible.”
Those statistics helped spur him to start the National Latino Physician Day effort.
“Really, it started as a tweet,” Galvez said. “That first year (2022), it got 14.1 million views.”
Now, more than 100 hospitals and medical institutions are partnering to advance the project.
“This year, we have over 25 events across the country,” Galvez said. “Last week, we had 400 people in an auditorium at UC Riverside.”
He said programs like the SJV Prime+ medical education pathway at UC Merced will help.
“The mission that UC Merced has is working toward that,” Galvez said. “To help all communities and understand that language and culture are helpful for this population.”
Students attending the presentation asked Galvez what brought him to the Central Valley and what his typical day is like. He said the lack of specialists available in the area was one attraction.
“When I was in the Bay Area I would see patients from the Central Valley, and I knew it was hard for them to get there,” he said.
There was also a personal connection.
“My wife was a big factor,” he said. A clinical lab scientist, she attended UC Merced and her family went to Fresno State.
His days are occupied by his work as a doctor, his advocacy and his family.
“Essentially, the life I chose is pretty hectic,” Galvez said. “Yesterday, I saw 25 fractures.”
Outside of that, he spends time with his wife and three children and works on making headway in his passion project.
“I don’t golf,” Galvez said. “I do this.”
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