Struggle to Be MD

* Re “One Last Chance to Be a Doctor,” Aug. 5: I commend Cristina Villarreal for her tenacity in pursuing her dream of becoming a physician. A few weeks prior to my medical school graduation 20-plus years ago, one of my classmates asked me to accompany him to the dean’s office to see our files. While reviewing our records, we noted that we had both been interviewed by the same man four years previously. This doctor thought that neither of us had the qualifications or ability to become physicians and should not be accepted for admission. By my own admission, I was only an average to above-average student in high school and college. But we were accepted.

My friend is currently a board-certified internist, nephrologist, intensivist and transplant immunologist in San Francisco. I graduated third in my medical school class. I am a board-certified pediatrician who practices medicine in South-Central Los Angeles.

Practicing medicine is more than GPAs and who can pay the tuition. All the medical knowledge and smarts in the world will not help those patients who do not have access to them. We need more doctors willing to work in underserved areas. Hard work, perseverance, compassion, courage. Cristina has all the qualifications to become a doctor already.

MAYO R. DeLILLY III MD

Los Angeles

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* USC admits to medical school a C-plus student with a D-minus MCAT score. Wow, maybe I can get into medical school too. She only applied to top-notch schools. What’s wrong with a Kansas or a Mexican medical school?

MARK ANTONELLI

Oxnard

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* While it is laudable that USC seeks to look beyond MCAT scores to recruit its minority students, had you looked beyond allopathic MD-granting institutions, you would have discovered that Western University of Health Sciences has consistently used such practices for years and as a result has always had a large minority student body. The university also graduates the largest number of family practitioners in the country. Osteopathic institutions are the real providers of physicians to the underserved areas.

LEE HAMILTON

Rancho Santa Margarita