UCSF Fresno graduates physicians for the San Joaquin Valley

BACKGROUND:

Each year, UCSF Fresno graduates approximately 90 physicians from its residency and fellowship programs.  Residency training prepares recently graduated MDs and Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine to become specialists, including pediatricians and family practitioners, in approximately three to five years. Fellowships offer specific training beyond residency in an area of expertise such as cardiology. Fellowships generally last one to two years. Thirty to 50 percent of these graduating medical residents and fellows stay in the San Joaquin Valley to practice their specialty and provide care for community members.

“We are proud of all of our graduates and we wish them well in the future,” said Joan Voris, MD, UCSF Fresno associate dean, “We are especially pleased that so many are staying in the Valley to practice and we are equally delighted that a number are staying at UCSF Fresno to continue their medical education or joining our faculty to teach the next generation of physicians.”

San Joaquin Valley natives Jaime Antuna, MD, and Omar Guzman, MD, are among this year’s graduates.

Dr. Antuna was born in Fresno and raised in the Firebaugh and Mendota areas. He graduated from Firebaugh High School and continued his education at Fresno State as a Smittcamp Scholar. He double majored in Chemistry and Health Science. During his time at Fresno State, he worked as a scribe in a local emergency department where he assisted physicians with documenting patient encounters. The experience confirmed his interest in emergency medicine. According to Antuna, his biggest challenge in school was not knowing how to achieve his goal of becoming a doctor.

Fortunately, he took advantage of the UCSF Fresno Health Careers Opportunity Program at Fresno State and went on to earn an MD from UCSF School of Medicine. He says coming home to train was an easy decision. His family is here. His mother and father still work and live in Firebaugh along with his younger sister. His twin brother and a younger brother both are police officers in Kerman. Antuna knew UCSF Fresno was a good fit because he conducted rotations here while in medical school. After graduation, Antuna will be working in the emergency department at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center.

Dr. Guzman was born in Visalia and graduated from Redwood High School where he met his wife Patricia, played football and was in the marching band. His parents began as farm workers in the Central Valley and overcame great disadvantages to earn graduate degrees and provide service to their communities. Guzman pursued a career in medicine because it provided him the opportunity to emulate his parents, to be a servant of the community as well as a physician advocate. He went to UC Irvine where he initially struggled academically. He persisted, graduated and afterward, took a job as a scribe in an emergency room. The interaction with patients and physicians solidified his passion to become an emergency medicine physician.  He was admitted into a post-baccalaureate program at UC Irvine and was later accepted into the UC Irvine School of Medicine. He was part of the second class in the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC), a program focused on training future physician leaders to work in underserved communities. Through PRIME-LC, Guzman pursued a master’s in Public Policy from UCLA while earning his medical degree. During medical school, he was honored by Kaiser Permanente with the Oliver Goldsmith Award for the advancement of culturally responsive care and was inducted as a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. He chose UCSF Fresno for residency training because the emergency medicine program is one of the best in the U.S. and he wanted to return home to serve Valley residents. Guzman continues his activism during residency through the National Hispanic Medical Association and most recently, he spent a month performing advocacy work with the American College of Emergency Physicians in Washington, DC.