I grew up in Venezuela. I went to medical school there, worked with underserved communities, and trained across everything from surgery to obstetrics. I was on track for a career in ENT surgery. Then political unrest changed everything, and Diego (my husband) and I left for Boston. I arrived pregnant with our first son and with no clear path forward.

 

But I found a mentor at Brigham and Women's Hospital who helped me discover family medicine. It wasn't a specialty I'd ever considered. It didn't even exist back home. But it was exactly right for me. I did my residency in Tallahassee. I had two more boys. I worked as a hospitalist, learning how acute illness works from the inside. But then two things happened.

 

First, the pandemic. Second, my father. He was 62, athletic, healthy. He was diagnosed with a progressive form of dementia. Watching him lose his ability to speak changed how I understood medicine. Diego and I became consumed with understanding how disease starts and how to prevent it. Not just for our family.

 

For every family we could reach. I started talking to my hospital patients about prevention, about habits, about the things no one tells you. But they'd get discharged and I'd never see them again. The relationship was gone. The follow-through was gone. When we moved to South Florida, I took a primary care job.

 

But the practice belonged to an insurance company. The visits were rushed. I couldn't care for people the way I knew they deserved. It was the only time in my career I didn't enjoy being a doctor. So we built ON Care.

 

To practice medicine the way I always wanted to. Time. Access. A relationship that doesn't reset every visit.