This post was updated Oct. 7 at 6:06 p.m.
Only around 6% of active physicians across the country are Hispanic.
Because of that disparity, Latinos in Surgery – a student organization founded at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine – encourages Latino medical students to not only pursue medicine but also enter its most competitive surgical specialties.
LIS is the first Latino surgical group at the School of Medicine and was founded in December 2023. Although other clubs – such as the Latino Medical Student Association – existed before, LIS is the first to narrow in on the surgical field.
The club hosts workshops about various surgical fields, where students have opportunities to learn about surgical tools and techniques and ask questions to professionals, said Victor Arechiga, a third-year medical student and co-founder of LIS.
“It allows students – including myself – to gain a broader sense of what maybe life would look like at multiple stages in residency, after residency and so on,” said Alejandra Lopez Macha, a fourth-year medical student and student coordinator for LIS.
Arechiga said the workshops also allow students to form valuable connections. Arechiga added that he found his first surgical mentor through a LIS suturing workshop.
“These are all very real encounters that we’ve had that wouldn’t have been possible without this organization,” Arechiga said.
Arechiga said he did not know where to start when exploring fields in surgery, adding that he lacked resources and connections. Facing this challenge, he said, inspired him to create LIS – he realized that other students have similar experiences.
Arechiga added that he hopes the club can help the next generation of students find its passion in surgery without feeling as lost.
Jose Segura-Bermudez, a third-year medical student and co-founder of LIS, said he wanted to foster a community for Latino students specifically interested in surgery.
“Why this whole thing started, is small moments like that can make a huge difference in anyone’s career, especially people that are underrepresented in this,” Segura-Bermudez said. “It’s just such a big thing to have someone believe in you – especially when that someone looks like you and comes from a similar background. Because they did it, why can’t you?”
Lopez Macha said she joined the club as a third-year medical student to share her experiences as a person of color in her surgical rotations.
“It was my first day on general surgery, and I walked in. And nobody in the room looked like me, but all the patients looked like me,” Lopez Macha said.
Despite Hispanic people making up around 19% of the U.S. population according to the 2020 Census, only about 6% of active physicians are Hispanic, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
In California, where Hispanics make up about 40% of the population, again about 6% of the active physicians are Hispanic, according to the Healthforce Center at UC San Francisco.
“You have this guard up just being in medicine. And then when you’re in surgery, this guard-up gets put up even more when you do something wrong, because you don’t know,” Segura-Bermudez said.
Dr. Juan Andino, a urologist at UCLA Health who is a faculty mentor for LIS, said in an emailed statement he wanted to join the club to encourage others to pursue surgery, like his own faculty mentor once did.
“I believed that I could be a surgeon when Dr. Machado-Aranda told me I should heavily consider surgery in my future,” Andino said in the emailed statement.
Earlier this year, UC Irvine established LIS as well, expanding the club’s goals of empowering Latino students in the surgical field.
“My hope is that more students will be willing to try new things, especially at events like Alejandra mentioned, and fall in love with surgery – because it’s a really cool field,” Segura-Bermudez said. “There’s a real need for people that do represent people’s lives … and to have someone that looks like you, and you can put trust in, is really big in these situations.”
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