Growing up, I resented the medical field. I grew up taking care of my grandmother who, before receiving a liver transplant in 2014, was struggling with her health. She was my introduction to what it meant to be a patient and in my eyes healthcare was not only slow and frustrating, but lacking resources for our community’s most vulnerable. This caused my grandmother’s health to depend on me to be her advocate and interpreter. Her symptoms were not taken seriously and her health deteriorated quickly at home. She reached a point where she could no longer contribute to her own community. The community mobilized to find a doctor that took her seriously and understood her experience and continued to support her throughout this tumultuous journey. This compassion and understanding undoubtedly led to her healing and recovery. Although the experience of witnessing the magic of a transplant was and is still an incredible feat to me, the experience she had as a latina immigrant woman before then never stopped bothering me. In 2020 I started volunteering as a firefighter and being the first responder to a scene initially it reminded me of the frustrations I felt with the medical field as a child. Because when it wasn’t a car accident, crime, or a fire it was almost always a medical incident that could have been prevented or an issue that was not taken as seriously until it had to be, or they couldn’t afford the care for it until it got out of hand. Being a volunteer firefighter and being the first response to a call often times you meet someone at their most vulnerable and you have to do everything you can to calm them down and pass them to the next person like an EMT. It’s a little chaotic but there’s a seamless trust in an emergency setting that no matter who it is and what’s going on everyone in that chain is doing their best to not only keep this person alive but to really heal and advocate for their care. This restored a lot of my trust in the medical field and it made me realize that the change I want to see is not something you can do with technology; for me it starts as a healthcare professional advocating for their patient’s care. Although I hated medicine, I’ve actually grown to really enjoy it even with its faults and seeing how empowering it can be. My time working in technology made me realize that even though impact is important for a community, technology is not enough to heal a community. I want to work on a future that provides the care my Latinx community deserves. I want to be the healthcare provider my grandmother needed in 2014 and provide the type of intersectional care that is currently lacking in medicine.