Everyone last night Elena and I attended the Kaiser Permanente Latino Association Hispanic Heritage Scholarship Banquet held at Scott's Seafood Restaurant on Jack London Square in Oakland. It's a beautiful venue. For a big change in such events the food was excellent.. There were many great speakers including Elena's colleague of many years-Dr. Gina Gregory-Burns. The keynote speaker really touched our heart. She is Jane Garcia. Jane is CEO of Clinica de la Raza that serves some 90,000 clients in the Bay area with excellent health care services. When Elena came to the USA in 2001, her medical license and specialty of oncology from Argentina were not honored. At age 40, Elena had to literally start her medical career over "from scratch." The only job that she could qualify for in the health care field here was medical assistant. After we got married and Elena got her Green Card, she applied at Clinica de la Raza. They took a chance on her and hired her. It was Elena's introduction to American healthcare. We lived in San Jose at the time. Elena did not have a car yet. She had an awful commute on buses and BART to a dangerous neighborhood in Oakland. As hard as it was, Elena always treasures this experience in her life. Clinica de la Raza is prospering and closely-aligned with Kaiser Permanente. We were delighted to see that they are receiving a $50 million grant to introduce electronic medical records in all their facilities.
Life takes us in many strange directions and wonderful discoveries. It never turns out the way we thought it would.
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