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Celebrating Pride MonthThe Department of Medicine is committed to assuring respect and support for our LGBTQ+ colleagues, patients, and community members.
Pride Month is celebrated each year in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion on New York’s Christopher Street. It is a time for our community to come together and reaffirm our commitment to diversity and inclusion. We acknowledge that Pride Month would not be possible without the work of queer and trans-Black women like Marsha P. Johnson, whose activism began before Stonewall.
I invite you all to join our colleagues at the SD Pride Parade on July 16 by walking with UC San Diego. I also highly encourage you to join the newly formed Department of Medicine's LGBTQ+ Faculty and Staff Community - with a special thanks to Jill Blumenthal, MD, MAS, and Matthew Carazo, MD for leading this effort with the JEDI Executive Committee. We hope you enjoy reading about our Department member spotlights throughout this newsletter.
Thank you for your ongoing contributions and allyship as we continue to reflect on our past and work towards the future of our Department.
Sincerely,
Zea Borok, MD
Alison Moore, MD, MPH
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Join Medicine’s LGBTQ+ Faculty and Staff Community!
As part of our LGBTQ+ Faculty and Staff Community group, you will receive information on lectures, professional development, networking opportunities, and social events. We encourage all members to share our resources and programming that can be forwarded. At this time, this community will be led by Jill Blumenthal, MD, MAS, and Matthew Carazo, MD, FACC. As we grow, there will be opportunities to collaborate and support this community’s initiatives. For more questions, please email medchair@health.ucsd.edu.
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March with UC San Diego or UC San Diego Health at the Pride Parade!
Saturday, July 16 at 10 a.m.
To register with UC San Diego please complete this registration form. To register with UC San Diego Health email gcr@ucsd.edu. There will be giveaways! Participants are encouraged to wear scrubs and white coats if applicable.
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| Department of Medicine Spotlights
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This year marks the 40th anniversary of the UC San Diego Health Owen Clinic!
Since its founding in 1982, the Owen Clinic has grown to become the largest, most comprehensive HIV primary care center in San Diego. The Owen Clinic's mission is to provide compassionate, culturally competent, and patient-centered care for people with and at risk of HIV. Each year our medical providers, nurses, social workers, and pharmacists care for, counsel, educate, and support more than 3,100 people with HIV and more than 500 people at risk of HIV. The mission also includes training medical, nursing, social work, and pharmacy students, residents, and fellows on how to provide exceptional care to those living with and at risk of HIV. The Owen Clinic serves as a medical home to many in the LGBTQ+ community through our HIV primary care program and also through our growing programs in HIV PrEP, medication-assisted treatment, hepatitis C treatment, and Gender Health.
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Jose Benjamin Cruz Rodriguez, MD, MPH (he/him)Division of Cardiovascular Disease
Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiologist Fellow
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To me, pride month is an opportunity to show that
despite the discriminatory history, the LGBTQ community is present, represents a chance to unite, and motivates myself and younger generations to be true to themselves.
Being born and raised in a very conservative country, I remember vividly the supportive environment found in the US when we moved with my husband. Pride starts within ourselves, breaking our own mental barriers and accepting ourselves. The combination of breaking prior stigmas and finding other LBGTQ colleagues in a non-discriminatory environment gave me the confidence to be with the person I love, build a life together, and have no fear of prejudice.
There is a long road ahead of us to minimize intrinsic bias and health disparities in the care of our LGBTQ community, and cardiovascular health is no exception. My aspiration is that my clinical practice represents a zone of comfort, whereby identifying themselves with a provider from their own community, patients feel comfortable reaching out and expressing themselves.
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Marvin Hanashiro (he/him)Community Outreach Supervisor
AntiViral Research Center (AVRC)
Division of Infectious Diseases & Global Public Health
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I hold integrity and authenticity as a couple of my core values, so it is very important for me to be out and proud. Also, I didn’t really see any positive examples of out and proud Asian people when I was growing up or before I came out, compared to now. So I am extremely proud and thankful that I can join my LGBTQ+ community members as a first-generation gay Asian American. It’s a cliché but representation truly matters.
I’m very proud of my contributions as a co-founder and board member of Red Dress Party San Diego, which is an annual dance party and charity fundraiser. Over the past 7 years, we’ve donated almost $250K to local HIV service organizations. Through my years of work with this 100% volunteer nonprofit organization, I’ve been able to develop my leadership, marketing, and fundraising skills that have completely helped me grow in my career as the community outreach supervisor at the AVRC.
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Jia Shen, MD, MPH (she/her)Division of Cardiovascular Diseases
Assistant Professor of Medicine
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Pride month is a celebration of LGBTQ people and culture. It is a month dedicated to uplifting LGBTQ voices and supporting LGBTQ rights. It is a chance for the community and its allies to come together in solidarity to celebrate all the LGBTQ community has achieved over the years. It is part of political activism, a memorial to those that have lost their lives to HIV/AIDs, and a celebration of love and acceptance.
For me, it is important to be out and proud to be a role model for the younger generation. Growing up, there were not a lot of lesbians that looked like me in medicine. I hope seeing people like me will give young people the courage to accept and embrace who they truly are and live authentically
My mother has always been a source of inspiration for me. After the Cultural Revolution in China, my mother applied to and was accepted to graduate school at the University of Alberta. She learned English while taking economics classes and helped my father and me immigrate to Canada. She was the main breadwinner in our family and showed me that anything was possible if you were willing to work for it. I would not be where I am today without the love and support of my mother.
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