The FACES Coalition’s Summer Medical Academy, hosted at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, CA, was featured on NBC’s Bay Area Proud television program.
Dr. Tomás Magaña says, like most physicians, he began his career believing that treating illnesses would be the way he would save his patients lives. But then Dr. Magaña, a pediatrician, began practicing medicine in inner-city Oakland.
“The leading cause of death for adolescents is trauma, followed by homicide, followed by suicide,” Dr. Magaña says. “That’s very hard for a pediatrician, because I’m trained for pathology.”
Dr. Magaña soon realized if he was going to save lives, he would have to broaden the ways he did it.
(July 2013)