National Latino Physician Day: How a Crisis Sparked the Origin of a National Day
National Latino Physician Day (NLPD) was established on October 1, 2022, as a day to celebrate Latino physicians in the United States, who represent 6% of the physician workforce.
The origin of a day to create awareness that “6% is not enough” was founded on a friendship that developed over social media. Two Latino men, raised in working-class communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, both attended community college and overcame multiple challenges to become double board certified in subspecialties. They were both passionate about the next generation. In fact, they had crossed paths at the Stanford University Minority Medical Alliance (SUMMA) premedical conference in 2007. The first author was a medical student who used Hip Hop lyrics to express his journey to a group of premedical students, while the second author was a premedical student in attendance, appreciating that he too could fit into the field of medicine. Fast forward 16 years, and both have now completed their training and practice in their respective fields of pediatric hand surgery and obstetric anesthesiology. However, 16 years later they connected online and quickly realized that something was just not right with the dismally low number of U.S. Latino physicians.