The Family Residency Program at Adventist Health White Memorial

The journey to becoming a community-focused doctor for Dr. Chris Hiromura began as a child in his family’s bakery in Santa Cruz, California. This culturally vibrant environment would prove to be extremely instrumental in shaping an understanding and appreciation of different cultural backgrounds, customs, and health beliefs. These were the building blocks for his community-focused healthcare career.

During the time spent in his parents’ bakery after school, Dr. Hiromura quickly understood the dynamics of the food industry that often hired recent immigrants and he saw their struggles navigating life in a new country. He also learned from his parents the compassion and fair treatment that can elevate all lives with equal pay and respect that goes along with rewarding hard work.

Those early lessons landed Dr. Hiromura in his first career as a middle school teacher, focusing on bilingual students, who, like the workers in the bakery, were navigating some difficult situations in school. In his effort to connect with many of his students, he became fluent in Spanish and committed himself to serving communities like the one in which he was raised. While his career as a teacher produced many success stories, Dr. Hiromura knew there was even more he could contribute outside the classroom.

Dr. Hiromura quickly found his calling in family medicine and completed his residency at Adventist Health White Memorial in 2008. The Boyle Heights community was the perfect setting for everything that shaped Dr. Hiromura as a young child. “I think those different threads of experiences shaped how and where I chose to work,” explains Dr. Hiromura. “All of my work, for the most part, has validated and supported my experience as a young person.”

Now, with his role as the Associate Program Director for the Family Medicine Residency Program at Adventist Health White Memorial, which he began in 2016, Dr. Hiromura is shaping the next generation of doctors trained to meet the unique needs of underserved communities. A full circle moment that allows him to teach students to care for the whole patient in the context of their life and community.

“Family medicine is very community-focused,” Dr. Hiromura explains. “We care for the whole patient in the context of their community. They may have difficulty accessing food, be in a job that is putting them at risk for exposure to certain chemicals, or their finances make it difficult to access the medicines that we prescribe. So, it is a specialty that tries to address not only the patient in front of us but also be aware of and address things at the community level that greatly impact patients.”

Adventist Health White Memorial residents are trained to handle the realities of working in an underserved area. Many of our patients suffer from chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and kidney failure, with little to no access to specialists. The residents learn to provide a wide range of care, from managing high-risk pregnancies and emergency situations to treating severe infections, strokes, and other complications. “You need a really well-trained doctor to care for them,” says Dr. Hiromura. “Our residents must manage what a specialist would do in other settings. We train them intensely because that is what’s required.”

Dr. Hiromura is especially proud that more than 60% of Family Medicine Residency Program graduates choose to go on and practice in underserved communities. If you want to learn more about the five residency programs, including the Family Medicine Residency Program at Adventist Health White Memorial, click here. Adventist Health White Memorial Residency Programs

Thank you, Dr. Hiromura, for your lifetime commitment to our patients at Adventist Health White Memorial.