Doctor Gives a Prescription for Success to School’s Aspiring Healers

A group of students from an Eastside medical magnet high school got a dose of grisly reality Thursday.

The slides of bullet-pierced bodies and torn human flesh that splashed across the screen in the school’s auditorium were a little too vivid, even for these students with a special interest in medical careers. A few of the students were so overwhelmed that they had to leave.

As part of Bravo Medical Magnet High School’s seventh annual health fair and career day, school officials invited County-USC Medical Center’s chief of trauma, Dr. J.A. Asensio, to give a presentation.

He came armed with personal stories and some emergency room truths he usually employs at schools and juvenile halls to discourage youngsters from gang life.

On Thursday, he showed Bravo’s students the same pictures with an additional message: Not only could they avoid such a life, but as aspiring doctors and nurses they would have a chance to mend the lives of those who pursue the violent path.

“You’re the future of this country,” he said. “You must continue to change things in a positive way.”

Asensio, a Cuban native whose impoverished parents immigrated to the United States four decades ago, later met with a smaller group of Latino magnet students, Jovenes por la Salud (Youths for Health). He warned the 15 girls and two boys that a career in medicine “is very difficult and requires big commitment and all your energy,” especially for minorities.

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Asensio said there were no support groups for Latino medical students when he attended Chicago’s Rush Medical College in the 1970s.

“The best way to keep motivated was to go to poor neighborhoods and work with poor Latinos, helping them and receiving their gratitude,” he said. “It is a cause that we must pursue constantly.”

Asensio, who said his parents never finished grammar school and could not afford to help him financially through medical school, said: “I’m still amazed at what I’ve been able to accomplish. I was told that I would end up a shoe salesman or a junkie. Adversity is a great builder of character.”

His message was warmly received by the students.

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“It is really inspirational,” said Jovenes’ President Myrna Ruiz, a senior who is thinking about pursuing psychiatry or pediatric medicine. “He was in a similar position as we are now.”

Senior Karina Medrano, another Jovenes member, said her confidence had been shaken lately by the obstacles she faces in her plans to become a psychiatrist. Her parents do not have financial means and Proposition 209, which has banned affirmative action in the state’s public colleges, has narrowed the odds.

But Asensio’s speech “really inspired me,” she said. “It made me realize I can do it too.”