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WOMEN IN
MEDICINE

WHY DID I

DECIDE TO

BECOME A

PHYSICIAN?

Following my path and

overcoming every obstacle

By Dr. Rosa I. Vizcarra, MD, FAAFP

It was a typical hot summer afternoon and I hurried to strangers to stress, conflict and challenges and often our conversations
Since then we have spent innumerable hours together. We are not
finish my clinic rounds and make a stop home to say
‘hi’ to my daughters, husband and elderly parents liv-
ing with us. Then it was off to a medical lecture sponsored by a revolve around healthcare and how to best serve our patients.
We talk family, politics, finances, technology and exercise. And,
local neurologist. As a barely new physician in San Antonio, I was of course, fashion!
there to get some knowledge and meet the specialists and other local Back in our day, it was not difficult to know that we wanted to be
MD’s. It was not hard to say ‘hello’ to the girl a chair away from me doctors, although for different reasons, but similar outcomes; one
and, from there, the rest is history. “Dr Ana” like many of her pa- from families with successful doctors and another one with no one
tients know her, and who is a well-known primary care doctor in involved in healthcare at all; both dreamers without boundaries,
the area, and me became not just colleagues but best friends. More both have moved across the country and have seen and lived with
than six years later we are still lucky that we found each other as we bias in our profession. I remember once being told by a physician,
share values, ethics and history. Lots of it! “I know you are capable and good enough because you had to work

26 San Antonio Medicine • March 2019