Fernando – on thinking BIG:
“I remember meeting with a former student of mine, Esteban Burchard, when he entered Stanford Medical School. I asked him what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to be a family practitioner. I told him, ‘I don’t want you to be just a family doctor. I want you to lead all of that.’
Dr. Mendoza and his mentee, Esteban Burchard, are two of the professionals featured in the Migrant Child Farmworkers to High-Profile Professionals © documentary film with on-camera presenter Xolo Maridueña (star of Blue Beetle and Cobra Kai).
Fernando Sanchez Mendoza, MD, MPH is the son of an immigrant Mexican farmworker father and a Mexican American mother who was deported back to Mexico as a child. He grew up never thinking about attending college, let alone becoming a doctor. A high school counselor suggested that he might want to consider being a doctor. Fernando went on to study medicine at Stanford and Harvard and became an MD, a Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Dean of Diversity at Stanford School of Medicine.
Beyond becoming a doctor, Dr. Mendoza became internationally recognized for his research and publications on health policy concerning Hispanic populations which include health care equity and sounding the alarm about the dearth of diversity among medical educators.
To book Dr. Mendoza for an interview, contact Diane Wagner: diane@themigrantchildfarmworkers.com