Forever in Its
PRIME
UC Irvine-developed dual-degree program that trains physician-activists to care for the underserved Latino population celebrates its 20th year
By Greg Hardesty
Forever in Its
PRIME
UC Irvine-developed dual-degree program that trains physician-activists to care for the underserved Latino population celebrates its 20th year
By Greg Hardesty
Forever in Its
PRIME
UC Irvine-developed dual-degree program that trains physician-activists to care for the underserved Latino population celebrates its 20th year
By Greg Hardesty
As president of the 10-campus University of California system, former UC Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake oversees nearly 300,000 students. In his office in Oakland, he has pictures of his family, famous people he’s met and a few students. One of them is of eight UC Irvine medical school graduates – the inaugural 2004 cohort in a game-changing program designed to create leaders and physician-activists dedicated to providing care to the underserved Latino community.
This past fall, the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community celebrated its 20th anniversary. Its two main champions were Drake, a physician who at the time was vice president for health affairs for the UC system, and the late Dr. Alberto Manetta, former associate dean of UC Irvine’s School of Medicine and an outspoken advocate for the marginalized.
“I look at you every day,” Drake said to one of the PRIME-LC graduates in the photo, Dr. Sarah Lopez, as chuckles rippled throughout the Sue & Bill Gross Nursing and Health Sciences Hall during a ceremony that reunited 145 PRIME-LC graduates on Oct. 18. “You make us so proud,” Drake said to them.
So far, 172 students have successfully completed PRIME-LC, a five-year M.D./master’s degree track that by 2007 had been adopted at the five other UC medical schools.
Applicants to PRIME-LC can be of any ethnicity. The goal is to find future doctors who will be particularly suited to caring for Latino patients and members of other underserved communities. But most PRIME-LC graduates are Latinos, who make up only 6 percent of active doctors in California.
“PRIME-LC is crucial because it works to address both the disparities in health outcomes among Latino patients and the lack of trust felt by the community,” Lopez said after the event. “There’s a gap in culturally relevant care that can lead to miscommunication, mistrust and poorer outcomes.”
As president of the 10-campus University of California system, former UC Irvine Chancellor Michael V. Drake oversees nearly 300,000 students. In his office in Oakland, he has pictures of his family, famous people he’s met and a few students. One of them is of eight UC Irvine medical school graduates – the inaugural 2004 cohort in a game-changing program designed to create leaders and physician-activists dedicated to providing care to the underserved Latino community.
This past fall, the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community celebrated its 20th anniversary. Its two main champions were Drake, a physician who at the time was vice president for health affairs for the UC system, and the late Dr. Alberto Manetta, former associate dean of UC Irvine’s School of Medicine and an outspoken advocate for the marginalized.
“I look at you every day,” Drake said to one of the PRIME-LC graduates in the photo, Dr. Sarah Lopez, as chuckles rippled throughout the Sue & Bill Gross Nursing and Health Sciences Hall during a ceremony that reunited 145 PRIME-LC graduates on Oct. 18. “You make us so proud,” Drake said to them.
So far, 172 students have successfully completed PRIME-LC, a five-year M.D./master’s degree track that by 2007 had been adopted at the five other UC medical schools.
Applicants to PRIME-LC can be of any ethnicity. The goal is to find future doctors who will be particularly suited to caring for Latino patients and members of other underserved communities. But most PRIME-LC graduates are Latinos, who make up only 6 percent of active doctors in California.
“PRIME-LC is crucial because it works to address both the disparities in health outcomes among Latino patients and the lack of trust felt by the community,” Lopez said after the event. “There’s a gap in culturally relevant care that can lead to miscommunication, mistrust and poorer outcomes.”
Michael V. Drake, UC President (left), and Xavier Becerra, then U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary
Michael V. Drake, UC President (left), and Xavier Becerra, then U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary
A Huge Success
PRIME-LC has been a “beacon for change in medical education and healthcare,” said Dr. Steve Goldstein, UC Irvine vice chancellor for health affairs, at the event.
Drake recalled how it took two years to get the UC regents to approve PRIME-LC, whose funding came from The California Endowment, a private, $4 billion-plus, statewide health foundation that aims to expand access to affordable, high-quality healthcare for underserved individuals and communities. The California Endowment wanted PRIME-LC to have a “payback requirement” for graduates, he explained, and to launch at either UCLA or UC San Francisco. No and no, Drake insisted.
“For this to work,” he said, recounting his stance, “it needs to have passion and dedication, and that came from Dr. Manetta, who is at UCI, so we’re going to start it at UCI. We want UCI to be a leader in what medical education ought to be for the country.”
Of PRIME-LC’s 172 graduates, 95 percent are serving in community settings with a high number of low-income Latino patients, and two-thirds report that they’re involved in leadership and advocacy activities to advance the cause of Latino health outside their practices, Goldstein said.
And PRIME-LC students work with various community organizations and clinics. For example, they are active in El Centro Cultural de Mexico, the Madison Park Neighborhood Association, Latino Health Access, the UC Irvine Student Outreach and Retention Center, and Border Angels. The coursework, taught by faculty from UC Irvine’s School of Medicine and School of Social Sciences, includes a summer rotation in Mexico.
A Huge Success
PRIME-LC has been a “beacon for change in medical education and healthcare,” said Dr. Steve Goldstein, UC Irvine vice chancellor for health affairs, at the event.
Drake recalled how it took two years to get the UC regents to approve PRIME-LC, whose funding came from The California Endowment, a private, $4 billion-plus, statewide health foundation that aims to expand access to affordable, high-quality healthcare for underserved individuals and communities. The California Endowment wanted PRIME-LC to have a “payback requirement” for graduates, he explained, and to launch at either UCLA or UC San Francisco. No and no, Drake insisted.
“For this to work,” he said, recounting his stance, “it needs to have passion and dedication, and that came from Dr. Manetta, who is at UCI, so we’re going to start it at UCI. We want UCI to be a leader in what medical education ought to be for the country.”
Of PRIME-LC’s 172 graduates, 95 percent are serving in community settings with a high number of low-income Latino patients, and two-thirds report that they’re involved in leadership and advocacy activities to advance the cause of Latino health outside their practices, Goldstein said.
And PRIME-LC students work with various community organizations and clinics. For example, they are active in El Centro Cultural de Mexico, the Madison Park Neighborhood Association, Latino Health Access, the UC Irvine Student Outreach and Retention Center, and Border Angels. The coursework, taught by faculty from UC Irvine’s School of Medicine and School of Social Sciences, includes a summer rotation in Mexico.
Diana Ramos, California Surgeon General
PRIME-LC is crucial because it works to address both the disparities in health outcomes among Latino patients and the lack of trust felt by the community. There’s a gap in culturally relevant care that can lead to miscommunication, mistrust and poorer outcomes.
- Dr. Sarah Lopez, a member of the original PRIME-LC cohort of eight students
PRIME-LC is crucial because it works to address both the disparities in health outcomes among Latino patients and the lack of trust felt by the community. There’s a gap in culturally relevant care that can lead to miscommunication, mistrust and poorer outcomes.
- Dr. Sarah Lopez, a member of the original PRIME-LC cohort of eight students
Diana Ramos, California Surgeon General
Steve Goldstein, UC Irvine Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs
Steve Goldstein, UC Irvine Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs
Distinct Needs
Marnie Granados, M.P.P. ’10, M.D. ’10, is a primary care physician at four clinics in Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Orange operated by Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
“No. 1 is speaking the same language,” she says of the skills that PRIME-LC graduates are using to provide better care to Latinos. “If you walk into a room and speak Spanish to a Spanish-speaking patient, everything changes,” Granados says. “The patient and their family members automatically feel more comfortable, and you can get a better medical history.”
But there are more subtle behaviors for doctors to consider when seeing Latino patients, she notes.
“There are cultural things like humility – walking in with that as a physician,” Granados says. “Of course, with any patient, being a good listener is critical. So is respect. That’s important in every culture but especially in the Latino culture. And showing respect comes with repeated exposure in working with patients from this population.”
She and other PRIME-LC participants say that learning from the shared experiences of others is making them better physician-activists.
“I chose to come to UCI medical school because of the inspiring individuals who are here not to simply be doctors but to advocate for populations that need it most,” says fourth-year student Karlos Manzanarez-Felix, a first-generation immigrant, the first in his family to attend medical school in the U.S. and a proud Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient.
He studied at Cypress College before transferring to UCLA for a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and then to UC Irvine’s PRIME-LC program. In addition to his medical degree, Manzanarez-Felix is pursuing a master’s degree in public health, with a concentration in health systems and policy. He plans to specialize in plastic and reconstructive surgery.
Distinct Needs
Marnie Granados, M.P.P. ’10, M.D. ’10, is a primary care physician at four clinics in Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Orange operated by Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
“No. 1 is speaking the same language,” she says of the skills that PRIME-LC graduates are using to provide better care to Latinos. “If you walk into a room and speak Spanish to a Spanish-speaking patient, everything changes,” Granados says. “The patient and their family members automatically feel more comfortable, and you can get a better medical history.”
But there are more subtle behaviors for doctors to consider when seeing Latino patients, she notes.
“There are cultural things like humility – walking in with that as a physician,” Granados says. “Of course, with any patient, being a good listener is critical. So is respect. That’s important in every culture but especially in the Latino culture. And showing respect comes with repeated exposure in working with patients from this population.”
She and other PRIME-LC participants say that learning from the shared experiences of others is making them better physician-activists.
“I chose to come to UCI medical school because of the inspiring individuals who are here not to simply be doctors but to advocate for populations that need it most,” says fourth-year student Karlos Manzanarez-Felix, a first-generation immigrant, the first in his family to attend medical school in the U.S. and a proud Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient.
He studied at Cypress College before transferring to UCLA for a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and then to UC Irvine’s PRIME-LC program. In addition to his medical degree, Manzanarez-Felix is pursuing a master’s degree in public health, with a concentration in health systems and policy. He plans to specialize in plastic and reconstructive surgery.
A Look Back: PRIME-LC’s First Graduating Class
Witness the beginnings of a legacy. Watch this special video highlighting the first graduating class of UC Irvine’s PRIME-LC program and see how these pioneers set the stage for two decades of impact in healthcare and underserved communities.
Praise From Latino Leaders
The PRIME-LC anniversary attracted prominent Latino leaders, including Xavier Becerra, then secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Diana Ramos, surgeon general of California.
Sworn in in 2021 as the first Latino in the nation’s history to hold that office, Becerra said his agency has several initiatives that embody the goals of PRIME-LC. One is Emerging Health Innovators, an effort of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health that launched in September 2024 to address healthcare gaps in the U.S. by getting more people from underrepresented groups active in the sciences and research.
“At HHS, we work under the same spirit as PRIME here at UCI,” said Becerra, former California attorney general who served 12 terms in Congress.
Ramos, who became California’s first Latino surgeon general in 2022, told the graduates and current PRIME-LC students: “Thank you for helping care for our future.”
She noted that 40 percent of the state’s population is Latino and that 1 of every 2 babies born in California is Latino. “What is our state going to look like?” Ramos asked. “What is our leadership going to look like?”
She said that much of her success has been due to mentors and supporters who reflect PRIME-LC’s community of alumni, current students, faculty and staff. “You can create the future of medicine, what it’s going to look like,” Ramos told the PRIME-LC students. “You have it right here at your fingertips.”
Meanwhile, PRIME-LC’s success continues to breed related efforts, Goldstein said. In 2019, UC Irvine launched Leadership Education to Advance Diversity – African, Black and Caribbean, the second official PRIME program at the campus. And plans are in the works to establish a third PRIME initiative to serve the LGBTQ+ population, Goldstein said.
Dr. Michael Stamos, dean of the UC Irvine School of Medicine, told the anniversary audience that he’s proud of many things the school has accomplished. “But nothing makes me prouder than the PRIME program,” Stamos said. “Nothing.”
Praise From Latino Leaders
The PRIME-LC anniversary attracted prominent Latino leaders, including Xavier Becerra, then secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Diana Ramos, surgeon general of California.
Sworn in in 2021 as the first Latino in the nation’s history to hold that office, Becerra said his agency has several initiatives that embody the goals of PRIME-LC. One is Emerging Health Innovators, an effort of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health that launched in September 2024 to address healthcare gaps in the U.S. by getting more people from underrepresented groups active in the sciences and research.
“At HHS, we work under the same spirit as PRIME here at UCI,” said Becerra, former California attorney general who served 12 terms in Congress.
Ramos, who became California’s first Latino surgeon general in 2022, told the graduates and current PRIME-LC students: “Thank you for helping care for our future.”
She noted that 40 percent of the state’s population is Latino and that 1 of every 2 babies born in California is Latino. “What is our state going to look like?” Ramos asked. “What is our leadership going to look like?”
She said that much of her success has been due to mentors and supporters who reflect PRIME-LC’s community of alumni, current students, faculty and staff. “You can create the future of medicine, what it’s going to look like,” Ramos told the PRIME-LC students. “You have it right here at your fingertips.”
Meanwhile, PRIME-LC’s success continues to breed related efforts, Goldstein said. In 2019, UC Irvine launched Leadership Education to Advance Diversity – African, Black and Caribbean, the second official PRIME program at the campus. And plans are in the works to establish a third PRIME initiative to serve the LGBTQ+ population, Goldstein said.
Dr. Michael Stamos, dean of the UC Irvine School of Medicine, told the anniversary audience that he’s proud of many things the school has accomplished. “But nothing makes me prouder than the PRIME program,” Stamos said. “Nothing.”
Celebrating 20 Year of PRIME-LC
Explore the impact of UC Irvine’s PRIME-LC program over the past two decades. Meet four outstanding alumni who are making a difference in healthcare.
Sarah Lopez, M.D. ’09, MBA ’09
Dr. Sarah Lopez, an emergency medicine specialist, loves approaching medicine from what she calls “outside the box”: in addition to providing medical care, she explains, making sure always to advocate for health equity.
“Medical school trained me to think that way,” says Lopez, a member of the original PRIME-LC cohort of eight students.
Her residency and fellowship at Los Angeles General Medical Center (formerly LAC+USC) put Lopez back inside the box. Like all doctors, she had to learn the nuts and bolts of medicine, the ins and outs of diseases, to see patients, etc. – all vital but, as she says, somewhat “cookie-cutter” aspects to being a physician.
After her residency and fellowship, Lopez accepted a faculty position at Indiana University, where she focused on clinical quality. She then served as a community emergency medicine physician in Southern California before becoming a patient safety officer at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, where she led efforts to improve the care of patients.
Throughout these experiences, Lopez witnessed many patients falling through gaping holes in the healthcare safety net – something that prompted her to make a bold career change. Lopez was making very good money when, in 2020, she left to join a virtual start-up, Zócalo Health, where she is chief medical officer. Zócalo aims to strengthen the health and well-being of the Latino community by eliminating barriers to accessing healthcare services and by providing affordable care.
“PRIME gave me the courage to leave my very secure job,” recalls Lopez, who – in addition to her M.D. – earned an MBA from UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business in 2009.
That business education led, in part, to her becoming a board member of several organizations and nonprofits, including the UCI-OC Alliance, the UC Irvine School of Medicine Alumni Chapter and The Paul Merage School of Business Dean’s Leadership Circle.
“The PRIME program has always pushed us to be brave, to push the conventions of medicine,” says Lopez, the child of Mexican immigrants in Santa Ana who at times had to resort to home remedies for healthcare because they had no medical insurance.
“Programs like PRIME-LC aim to train physicians who understand the unique social, cultural and economic factors affecting Latino communities,” she says. “This not only helps create a more diverse physician workforce but there is also data showing that patients do better when they receive care that is linguistically and culturally sensitive, leading to better trust, adherence to treatment and overall outcomes.”
Lopez especially praises PRIME-LC founder Dr. Alberto Manetta: “He put words to my lived experience.”
Dr. Sarah Lopez, an emergency medicine specialist, loves approaching medicine from what she calls “outside the box”: in addition to providing medical care, she explains, making sure always to advocate for health equity.
“Medical school trained me to think that way,” says Lopez, a member of the original PRIME-LC cohort of eight students.
Her residency and fellowship at Los Angeles General Medical Center (formerly LAC+USC) put Lopez back inside the box. Like all doctors, she had to learn the nuts and bolts of medicine, the ins and outs of diseases, to see patients, etc. – all vital but, as she says, somewhat “cookie-cutter” aspects to being a physician.
After her residency and fellowship, Lopez accepted a faculty position at Indiana University, where she focused on clinical quality. She then served as a community emergency medicine physician in Southern California before becoming a patient safety officer at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, where she led efforts to improve the care of patients.
Throughout these experiences, Lopez witnessed many patients falling through gaping holes in the healthcare safety net – something that prompted her to make a bold career change. Lopez was making very good money when, in 2020, she left to join a virtual start-up, Zócalo Health, where she is chief medical officer. Zócalo aims to strengthen the health and well-being of the Latino community by eliminating barriers to accessing healthcare services and by providing affordable care.
“PRIME gave me the courage to leave my very secure job,” recalls Lopez, who – in addition to her M.D. – earned an MBA from UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business in 2009.
That business education led, in part, to her becoming a board member of several organizations and nonprofits, including the UCI-OC Alliance, the UC Irvine School of Medicine Alumni Chapter and The Paul Merage School of Business Dean’s Leadership Circle.
“The PRIME program has always pushed us to be brave, to push the conventions of medicine,” says Lopez, the child of Mexican immigrants in Santa Ana who at times had to resort to home remedies for healthcare because they had no medical insurance.
“Programs like PRIME-LC aim to train physicians who understand the unique social, cultural and economic factors affecting Latino communities,” she says. “This not only helps create a more diverse physician workforce but there is also data showing that patients do better when they receive care that is linguistically and culturally sensitive, leading to better trust, adherence to treatment and overall outcomes.”
Lopez especially praises PRIME-LC founder Dr. Alberto Manetta: “He put words to my lived experience.”
Carl Smith, M.D. ’09, MBA ’09
The 911 call came in to Dr. Carl Smith and his team at the Northern Navajo Medical Center in New Mexico during the 2023 holiday season. A truck carrying a family had hit an ice patch and flipped on a highway in Shiprock, an unincorporated community on the Navajo Nation reservation.
Shattered glass and Christmas presents were strewn across the road when emergency crews arrived. Fortunately, the parents and their three children had been wearing seatbelts. All were treated as trauma patients and cleared for discharge from the emergency room.
However, the monolingual Spanish-speaking family was traveling from Mexico to their home in Idaho and became stranded without a functioning vehicle. Smith and his team secured temporary housing for them and connected them to other services, including a nonprofit organization in Colorado that assists migrants.
“It was a tough situation, but instead of telling the family, ‘You’re on your own. Good luck,’ we were determined to help them,” Smith recalls. “What helped me the most was having a network of like-minded people that know the system and knew who to call.”
He’s a member of UC Irvine’s original PRIME-LC cohort – enrolled in 2004 – who practices emergency medicine while serving as deputy director of the 60-bed medical center, which has one of the largest patient volumes in the U.S. government’s Indian Health Service network.
“We all wanted to serve and give back to our communities,” says Smith, who simultaneously earned an M.D. from UC Irvine’s School of Medicine and an MBA from the campus’s Paul Merage School of Business in 2009, of his PRIME-LC colleagues. “Where I work feels like home because our group is so mission-driven. My colleagues care so much about their patients and are willing to make sacrifices to help better healthcare. It feels good to give back to the community.
The 911 call came in to Dr. Carl Smith and his team at the Northern Navajo Medical Center in New Mexico during the 2023 holiday season. A truck carrying a family had hit an ice patch and flipped on a highway in Shiprock, an unincorporated community on the Navajo Nation reservation.
Shattered glass and Christmas presents were strewn across the road when emergency crews arrived. Fortunately, the parents and their three children had been wearing seatbelts. All were treated as trauma patients and cleared for discharge from the emergency room.
However, the monolingual Spanish-speaking family was traveling from Mexico to their home in Idaho and became stranded without a functioning vehicle. Smith and his team secured temporary housing for them and connected them to other services, including a nonprofit organization in Colorado that assists migrants.
“It was a tough situation, but instead of telling the family, ‘You’re on your own. Good luck,’ we were determined to help them,” Smith recalls. “What helped me the most was having a network of like-minded people that know the system and knew who to call.”
He’s a member of UC Irvine’s original PRIME-LC cohort – enrolled in 2004 – who practices emergency medicine while serving as deputy director of the 60-bed medical center, which has one of the largest patient volumes in the U.S. government’s Indian Health Service network.
“We all wanted to serve and give back to our communities,” says Smith, who simultaneously earned an M.D. from UC Irvine’s School of Medicine and an MBA from the campus’s Paul Merage School of Business in 2009, of his PRIME-LC colleagues. “Where I work feels like home because our group is so mission-driven. My colleagues care so much about their patients and are willing to make sacrifices to help better healthcare. It feels good to give back to the community.
Smith, who grew up in Covina, fell in love with Mexico when he spent time living there before medical school. He became fluent in Spanish and returned to conduct research on doctor-patient relationships for a medical school project.
“The thing the PRIME program does most is give meaning to my work,” says Smith, who practiced at a community hospital in Farmington, New Mexico, before transitioning to the Navajo reservation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PRIME-LC program, he says, has instilled in him a sense of empathy for all patients and strengthened his commitment to working in underserved communities. “The program helped me meet patients where they’re at and make them feel comfortable,” Smith says. “PRIME inspires doctors to go further. We can’t just assume that everyone we see has water, electricity, transportation and other essentials.”
Smith, who grew up in Covina, fell in love with Mexico when he spent time living there before medical school. He became fluent in Spanish and returned to conduct research on doctor-patient relationships for a medical school project.
“The thing the PRIME program does most is give meaning to my work,” says Smith, who practiced at a community hospital in Farmington, New Mexico, before transitioning to the Navajo reservation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PRIME-LC program, he says, has instilled in him a sense of empathy for all patients and strengthened his commitment to working in underserved communities. “The program helped me meet patients where they’re at and make them feel comfortable,” Smith says. “PRIME inspires doctors to go further. We can’t just assume that everyone we see has water, electricity, transportation and other essentials.”
Marco Angulo, M.D. ’11, M.A. ’11
A former aspiring “guitar god” who grew up in Montebello, Marco Angulo decided to go to medical school at the urging of loved ones and because of his desire to serve his community. He now is medical director of medical education at the AltaMed Institute for Health Equity, where he leads initiatives to create more equitable healthcare systems.
“PRIME-LC gave me the confidence and ability to carry the voices of my community into every room I walk into as a physician,” Angulo says. “The program instilled in me the belief that if we don’t advocate for change, who will?”
He continues: “It’s through PRIME-LC that I learned my training wasn’t just about clinical skills – it was about shaping a future where the medically underserved, particularly the Latino community, are seen, heard and cared for.”
After attending East Los Angeles College, Angulo transferred to UC Berkeley, where he majored in Chicano studies. In 2006, he was accepted into the UC Irvine School of Medicine’s third PRIME-LC cohort. “It was a family of like-minded individuals who became my friends to celebrate with and, at times, be shoulders to cry on,” he recalls. “It provided an atmosphere that kept us grounded in our mission of serving underserved communities.”
In addition, Angulo says, PRIME-LC gave him the opportunity to earn an M.A. in social science alongside his medical training. “This dual focus was incredibly beneficial to my growth and broadened my understanding of healthcare beyond clinical practice,” he says. “This additional training gave me a solid grounding in public health and policy. PRIME-LC doesn’t just train physicians; it creates leaders who are committed to changing the landscape of healthcare for the better.”
After graduating from medical school, Angulo served as director of diversity and inclusion at the UC Irvine School of Medicine and led the PRIME-LC residency program. He then moved on to become chief medical officer at Serve the People Community Health Center in Santa Ana before joining AltaMed.
Angulo cherished meeting up with old friends at the 20th anniversary PRIME-LC event. “Staying connected with colleagues over the years – and sharing patients as we navigate our careers – has been one of the greatest blessings of my journey,” he says. “Many of us are not just working at places like AltaMed Health Services; we’re running clinics, leading the charge and practicing what we preach.”
As for his music, Angulo is no longer lead guitarist for Romantic Torture, an East L.A. alt-rock group. But he’ll continue to sing the praises of PRIME-LC.
“What I love most is seeing the next generation of PRIME-LC graduates rise through the ranks and live out the mission we all hold so dear,” he says.
A former aspiring “guitar god” who grew up in Montebello, Marco Angulo decided to go to medical school at the urging of loved ones and because of his desire to serve his community. He now is medical director of medical education at the AltaMed Institute for Health Equity, where he leads initiatives to create more equitable healthcare systems.
“PRIME-LC gave me the confidence and ability to carry the voices of my community into every room I walk into as a physician,” Angulo says. “The program instilled in me the belief that if we don’t advocate for change, who will?”
He continues: “It’s through PRIME-LC that I learned my training wasn’t just about clinical skills – it was about shaping a future where the medically underserved, particularly the Latino community, are seen, heard and cared for.”
After attending East Los Angeles College, Angulo transferred to UC Berkeley, where he majored in Chicano studies. In 2006, he was accepted into the UC Irvine School of Medicine’s third PRIME-LC cohort. “It was a family of like-minded individuals who became my friends to celebrate with and, at times, be shoulders to cry on,” he recalls. “It provided an atmosphere that kept us grounded in our mission of serving underserved communities.”
In addition, Angulo says, PRIME-LC gave him the opportunity to earn an M.A. in social science alongside his medical training. “This dual focus was incredibly beneficial to my growth and broadened my understanding of healthcare beyond clinical practice,” he says. “This additional training gave me a solid grounding in public health and policy. PRIME-LC doesn’t just train physicians; it creates leaders who are committed to changing the landscape of healthcare for the better.”
After graduating from medical school, Angulo served as director of diversity and inclusion at the UC Irvine School of Medicine and led the PRIME-LC residency program. He then moved on to become chief medical officer at Serve the People Community Health Center in Santa Ana before joining AltaMed.
Angulo cherished meeting up with old friends at the 20th anniversary PRIME-LC event. “Staying connected with colleagues over the years – and sharing patients as we navigate our careers – has been one of the greatest blessings of my journey,” he says. “Many of us are not just working at places like AltaMed Health Services; we’re running clinics, leading the charge and practicing what we preach.”
As for his music, Angulo is no longer lead guitarist for Romantic Torture, an East L.A. alt-rock group. But he’ll continue to sing the praises of PRIME-LC.
“What I love most is seeing the next generation of PRIME-LC graduates rise through the ranks and live out the mission we all hold so dear,” he says.
Dinora Chinchilla, M.D. ’14, MBA ’14
Dr. Dinora Chinchilla is a product of public schools in Lincoln Heights who now works as a pulmonologist at UC Irvine Medical Center, in Orange, where she specializes in critical care medicine and the treatment of lung diseases.
“Day in and day out, I see patients from our surrounding Latino communities who show up at our hospital doors in very poor mental and physical health,” she says. “I understand the disparities that affect these communities. I experienced them every day growing up.”
Chinchilla studied biochemistry and biology at California State University, Los Angeles before entering the UC Irvine School of Medicine’s PRIME-LC program in 2009. She earned her MBA the same year she earned her M.D., in 2014. Chinchilla subsequently completed her three-year residency training in internal medicine at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in 2017 and, in 2020, finished a three-year fellowship in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center/Harbor-UCLA.
While there, Chinchilla found herself on the front lines in the intensive care unit when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted. She was one of the few doctors who spoke Spanish in the unit and freely gave overwhelmed families her phone number.
Among Chinchilla’s scholarly efforts is a study published in a leading medical journal examining racial disparities and other socioeconomic predictors of mortality in acute pulmonary embolism treatment throughout the U.S.
Healthcare inequities particularly affecting the Latino population include access to care, higher rates of cardiovascular disease (such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes) and poverty. “I understand the reasons for these disparities,” Chinchilla says, “and I make sure to teach staff and fellows – the future generation of doctors – about what these patients face.”
Such teaching moments, she continues, result in more empathetic and comprehensive care for patients – one of the tenets she learned as a PRIME-LC medical student. Chinchilla says her years in the program, as well as her collaboration with fellow graduates over the years, have provided her with the tools she puts into daily use as a physician.
“Learning about the academic perspective of healthcare disparities has allowed me to more effectively meet the needs of the community I serve and, therefore, has given me the ability to make a more meaningful and positive impact on healthcare delivery,” she says.
Being able to communicate with patients in their native tongue is invaluable, Chinchilla notes. “There’s nothing like walking into a family meeting in the intensive care unit when you have to deliver very difficult news regarding families’ loved ones,” she says, “and seeing their faces of relief when they see that someone who understands their culture and speaks their language is there to speak to them.”
Dr. Dinora Chinchilla is a product of public schools in Lincoln Heights who now works as a pulmonologist at UC Irvine Medical Center, in Orange, where she specializes in critical care medicine and the treatment of lung diseases.
“Day in and day out, I see patients from our surrounding Latino communities who show up at our hospital doors in very poor mental and physical health,” she says. “I understand the disparities that affect these communities. I experienced them every day growing up.”
Chinchilla studied biochemistry and biology at California State University, Los Angeles before entering the UC Irvine School of Medicine’s PRIME-LC program in 2009. She earned her MBA the same year she earned her M.D., in 2014. Chinchilla subsequently completed her three-year residency training in internal medicine at Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in 2017 and, in 2020, finished a three-year fellowship in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center/Harbor-UCLA.
While there, Chinchilla found herself on the front lines in the intensive care unit when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted. She was one of the few doctors who spoke Spanish in the unit and freely gave overwhelmed families her phone number.
Among Chinchilla’s scholarly efforts is a study published in a leading medical journal examining racial disparities and other socioeconomic predictors of mortality in acute pulmonary embolism treatment throughout the U.S.
Healthcare inequities particularly affecting the Latino population include access to care, higher rates of cardiovascular disease (such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes) and poverty. “I understand the reasons for these disparities,” Chinchilla says, “and I make sure to teach staff and fellows – the future generation of doctors – about what these patients face.”
Such teaching moments, she continues, result in more empathetic and comprehensive care for patients – one of the tenets she learned as a PRIME-LC medical student. Chinchilla says her years in the program, as well as her collaboration with fellow graduates over the years, have provided her with the tools she puts into daily use as a physician.
“Learning about the academic perspective of healthcare disparities has allowed me to more effectively meet the needs of the community I serve and, therefore, has given me the ability to make a more meaningful and positive impact on healthcare delivery,” she says.
Being able to communicate with patients in their native tongue is invaluable, Chinchilla notes. “There’s nothing like walking into a family meeting in the intensive care unit when you have to deliver very difficult news regarding families’ loved ones,” she says, “and seeing their faces of relief when they see that someone who understands their culture and speaks their language is there to speak to them.”
UC Irvine Magazine is produced by the Office of Strategic Communications & Public Affairs.
To contact the editor, email ucimagazine@uci.edu.