Cristian Ramirez

Cristian Ramirez immigrated to Florida from Peru with his family when he was five. There, he and his family experienced the difficulties of attaining proper medical care while undocumented. “It was a struggle, not only to get medicine, but to exist,” Ramirez recalled. “Going to a doctor without insurance was really rough and my grandmother suffered from diabetes. I saw how the price of insulin affected her.” While Ramirez and his family eventually became citizens, the early experiences stuck with him and he wanted to help others. He said that an additional factor in drawing him to medicine was his own experience getting glasses. “I remember that I became curious. I started wondering: how do my eyes work? It was a combination of my interest in science, my desire to give back, and help to fix the things that my family struggled with.” His focus on helping the underserved fits naturally with TouroCOM’s mission. “TouroCOM’s mission is having more physicians from underrepresented backgrounds serving in underserved areas,” said Ramirez. “I saw that, not only in the mission statement, but the doctors TouroCOM was producing.”