The EthnoMed Podcast

Provider Pulse Ep. 25: Which Hard to Choose - Dr. Angelo Cabal and Finding Authenticity on the Path to Medicine (Part 1)

• Dr. Duncan Reid, MD @ EthnoMed.org • Season 1 • Episode 25

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Part 1: "Which Hard to Choose" (Part 1 of 2)

What does it take to become a doctor when you don't fit the mold? When you've never met a physician, when your high school gets overwhelmed by budget cuts, when you're the first in your family to navigate the American education system?

In Part 1 of Angelo Cabal's story, we follow his journey from a flooded house in Manila to a pediatric ICU in San Diego, through underfunded Southeast San Diego schools to the culture shock of UC Berkeley. Along the way, Angelo discovers that the study strategies that got him through high school won't work anymore, that his pre-med classmates seem years ahead of him, and that the path forward isn't always clear.

After graduating, Angelo tries basic science research, then public health—only to find himself in Chicago, enrolled in a Master's program, facing a growing certainty that he's chosen the wrong path again. When he reaches out to a faculty mentor he's known for just a few months, that conversation changes everything.

This is a story about structural barriers, culture shock, and the transformative power of mentorship. It's about learning to ask for help, and finding the courage to start over.

Topics: immigrant experience, medical education, mentorship, UC Berkeley, underfunded schools, pre-med culture, public health, career transitions

Visit EthnoMed.org for additional resources. Follow us on YouTube and Instagram @EthnoMedUW

Angelo 25_09_23

Provider Pulse Ep. 25: Which Hard to Choose - Dr. Angelo Cabal and Finding Authenticity on the Path to Medicine (Part 1)

[00:00:00] 

Angelo:  I remember coming back, home kind of just feeling pretty despondent because I can't really define what this, like, this feeling is not good. I realized at the time the thing that made me the most fulfilled in college, was just working with people directly and, he told me, he was have you thought about medicine? I had a general interest in volunteering in college and in high school, I kind of pushed it aside because, you know, I didn't fit that mold. I didn't see myself being that type of person to be in medicine. I just didn't feel like I had the [00:00:30] confidence 

Duncan: That is a voice of Dr. Angelo Cabal from Manila to San Diego. Through underfunded schools and prestigious universities, one physician's journey shows us how the path to medicine can be tortuous, and how authentic mentorship and a conversation can change everything.

 This is the Provider Pulse series of the EthnoMed podcast, where we highlight the career paths of diverse healthcare professionals. 

Angelo: My name is Angelo Cabal. I'm a first year resident in the internal medicine program at University of Washington.

1. Manila Memories and Migration (childhood identity)

Duncan: I was [00:01:00] originally born in the Philippines in Quezon City. I grew up in Manila for about six years until I moved with my family to San Diego. Do you remember growing up in the Philippines?

Angelo: I remember bits and pieces, like kind of just flashbulb memories not so much what my daily life was like, but kind of those strong memories of growing up.

Duncan: What's one that sticks out to you?

Angelo: in the Philippines, there's a wet and dry season and, our house flooded a couple times and it's kind of just the way of life there.

And, we had a one story [00:01:30] house, And, the master bedroom was kind of a little elevated. So during a week when our house had gotten flooded, the power was out, we would, just stay in the master bedroom.

Me, my parents and my siblings, and just waited, until the flood receded. And there was always a lot of cleanup after that. I remember thinking back as like that.

That's kind of odd, but I know it like happens here too. So, that's, a warm memory of mine. Yeah,

Duncan: And did you have any siblings

Angelo: Yeah, I have an older sister, an older brother and a twin sister.

And what were your parents doing for [00:02:00] work?

My parents worked for government, my dad worked for the Department of Agriculture And my mom was an accountant also for the Philippine government.

A couple years before I was born, they had filed a petition to emigrate to the United States. Our petition was, finally approved in 97, 96. My parents, left really stable careers, after growing up in poverty, their entire lives, 

And their priority, they always told me was our education. In the Philippines, it's a, very privatized educational system.Even though they had good careers, it was [00:02:30] still going to be pretty unaffordable for us to stay.

And, they all thought it was better opportunities in America

 

2. First Contact with the System (arrival and ICU) 

Duncan: Where did you move to?

Angelo: We moved to San Diego. That's where a lot of my mom's, brothers and sisters were situated. We finally settled in, Southeast San Diego.

Duncan: Do you remember when you arrived to San Diego?

Angelo: Yeah, I, I think when you're six, you don't really understand the concept of moving to a different country. I just knew that things vaguely were gonna be completely different. But I remember moving to San Diego because maybe [00:03:00] one or two days there, I got really sick. I got like really feverish.

I, got really confused. So they took me to the children's hospital and I was diagnosed with aseptic meningitis. I actually was in the ICU for a while.

Duncan: And do you remember any aspects of that?

Angelo: What I remember is actually being carted in on a gurney. And I remember my neck really hurting, because I think they were putting in a central line. Clearly I didn't know that then, I just remember specifically that they, stuck a needle in my neck and that hurt so much.

 

Duncan: [00:03:30] Within days of arriving in America, 6-year-old, Angelo found himself in a pediatric ICU with aseptic meningitis. It was a terrifying introduction to both the American healthcare system and its financial bureaucracy. 

That must have been terrifying for your family. do they ever talk to you about that experience?

Angelo: They talk to me about it all the time. I mean we had just moved here. It's not a good sign to have such an emergency happen right when you know you've just moved your entire life. I remember after I got a little bit better, my parents were really worried [00:04:00] about the hospital bills.

My mom tells me they applied for emergency Medicaid, my extended family helped us get that paperwork together it was a very scary situation financially and health wise.

Duncan: Angelo discusses his adjustment to life in the US as well as that of his siblings and his parents.

Angelo: My eldest sister was 13, and then my brother was 10. Yeah. 

Duncan: Angelo's family settled in Southeast San Diego in a neighborhood with a strong Filipino community. For Angelo's older sister this made the [00:04:30] transition easier. For 6-year-old Angelo and his twin sister, identity was still forming.

3. Belonging by Neighborhood (community and identity)

Angelo: My elder sister, she had this kind of more concrete, Filipino identity, and luckily San Diego is a city with a very strong Filipino community. So, her transition was a little bit smoother because, she had more solid, concept of identity at that point. 

Duncan: And how about you and your twin?

Angelo: Just in terms of transitioning, I think it was also easier for us, because, we vaguely knew we were Filipino and that we grew up in the Philippines, but [00:05:00] we hadn't really formed that many strong bonds yet before we moved. 

 We moved to a school district with a very, prominent Filipino community and also other kind of minority groups like Hispanic, African American, other Southeast Asian, like Laotian people.

So I didn't really feel like that much of an outsider growing up,

Duncan: Angelo's parents had left stable government careers in the Philippines, prioritizing their children's education, but in America, they had to start over.

And how were your parents adjusting to this [00:05:30] transition?

Angelo: Well, I think the first couple years were pretty rough. You know, I mentioned they were working in stable positions, in the Philippines. But here, they kind of had to restart from the bottom of the ladder. They still ended up working for government.

 My dad, went from being a supervisor in the Philippine government to working as a desk clerk for San Diego County. And then my mom was able to start a job in accounting, but she also had to start from the bottom of the ladder in San Diego County as well.

 Did your parents feel [00:06:00] assimilated into the American culture do you have any sense of how they were doing?

I think this is an interesting question because kind of a mile away from where house was, is this City called National City and it's very proudly Filipino American. They had Filipino video stores that you can rent Filipino movies at.

They had a lot of Filipino restaurants that tasted just how food tasted at home. Even delivered in the same style that would in the Philippines, like in a metal plate over burners, I think that was their version of assimilation is like still having a taste of [00:06:30] home.

And I think that's both fortunate and maybe purposeful on their account like they wanted to be somewhere, they wouldn't feel like outsiders.

Duncan: San Diego brought the comforts of familiar food, language and family. However, school presented its own series of challenges as Angelo navigated an underfunded system.

Angelo: Going to high school, I think it was definitely more of a transition. It was actually a really big transition because, in the educational system, they parse you as are you an advanced student? Are you in the middle? Are you, kind of more [00:07:00] remedial? And when we went to high school, I was, in the higher performing group. 

Our neighboring high school, had been closed down, for restructuring and the impact of, that was that all those students that were supposed to go to that high school, went to our high school, and our high school, it was already pretty underfunded.

It just got inundated with students that they weren't prepared to accommodate,

5. Self-advocacy and Early Science Spark (agency + biology)

Duncan: The school population must have just increased.

Angelo: Yeah, like dramatically. And I remember the first couple weeks of high school going to the counselor and just being like, oh, why am I in [00:07:30] regular algebra. I already took algebra in middle school, what's going on? And, they kind of waved their hands a bit 

Duncan: Angelo describes the socioeconomic context of living in Southeast San Diego. 

Angelo: Southeast San Diego is a more historically low to middle income community.

It used to be like pretty, middle of the road. But it was one of those communities where, just generally speaking, like white flight occurred, it's really close to downtown San Diego, so it was like classified as an urban area. So when more suburbs came about, people picked up and left.

Duncan: It was in [00:08:00] this urban setting that Angelo began to notice the lack of resources and the need to advocate for himself. 

Angelo: So it became a little bit more underfunded and under-resourced. And that's when I started really kind of getting more awareness of my surroundings and what my education, was really like in context all along. 

So, I got off the advanced track, so to speak, and for freshman year. And I just remember not being really engaged at all, that year of high school and luckily, I kind of just weathered the storm.

I performed well [00:08:30] enough to advocate for myself the next year and that's when things improved a little bit. But, there were things happening outta my control that were, impacting the education I wanted to get, and also, potentially a future I wanted to have.

Duncan: Despite the challenges, his academic interests were taking root.

Field trips to the San Diego Zoo, sparked a fascination with biology that would help shape everything to come.

Angelo: Yeah. So academically, growing up in San Diego, I had always known I liked, biology or just like life forms. I [00:09:00] remember in elementary, middle school, some of our field trips that we would go on. We would take the train to the San Diego Zoo as a whole class.

We kind of just hang out at the zoo and watch, the animals. I like just vaguely knew that I wanted to do some sort of biology that always fascinated me. So academically, I really love my AP biology class. So that was kind of the beginning of that for me.

6. UC Berkeley and Culture Shock

Duncan: Angelo set his sights on UC Berkeley, the crown jewel of the UC system. But getting there meant navigating financial strain for his family, especially when his twin [00:09:30] sister also was planning to attend college

Where were you thinking of going to school?

Angelo: Mostly I was just thinking of going to UC San Diego, or, my reach school, was UC Berkeley. I ended up going to Berkeley, 

Duncan: I remember with my family in sophomore year, we, went to San Francisco and we stopped by the school, and I remember really like just generally liking the school.

Angelo: People were protesting at the time. And knew I kind of liked that too. 

I've always been the kind of person that's like, let's try something different. Even if it's a little bit more inconvenient or, more [00:10:00] difficult in theory.

Duncan: So you met a little bit of resistance from your parents, just because of how unpragmatic it seemed.

Angelo: Yeah. Yeah. And like they, they were overall really worried that I wouldn't be able to afford it, you know, with, financial aid and everything. It just wouldn't be enough. Actually, it was kind of a difficult situation too, because my twin sister was also applying to college at the same time, and I remember she got into UC Davis and some other schools. And, I think what really stressed my parents out was trying to help us financially at [00:10:30] the same time.

Duncan: So, , my sister ended up going to community college first because, she's also more pragmatic than me. That was a very difficult time. Was it hard realizing that you would have to go to a different place than your sister as well?

Angelo: Yeah, I think so. I felt a lot of guilt, because I was able to go to Berkeley, whereas, she made a different decision, and I think maybe in retrospect she kind of did that for me, you know, just to alleviate my parents' concerns, all this stuff.

 But the financial consideration just weighed heavily [00:11:00] on both of us, and I think she ultimately made the more responsible choice. 

Duncan: You mentioned that you were excited by the protesters at Berkeley, can you tell me more about that? 

Angelo: yeah. So, I've always been into kind of a counterculture, growing up, there's a lot of like groups, right? When I was growing up, there were emo kids, they were scene kids, there were goths, I always gravitated towards that. But then, in high school, I was starting to mature into realizing there's these bigger institutional forces that don't always have the people's best interests, you know, especially people from neighborhoods like [00:11:30] mine, and minoritized communities like mine.

 That's when going through that realization when I visited Berkeley and then going to college, there is it kinda came full circle because I became interested in learning about all of that. 

Duncan: Would you say that your interest in these counter-cultural movements that was in some way aligned to your immigrant background?

Angelo: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Because I think in retrospect, as an immigrant, you always kind of feel like an outsider and you're not part of the dominant culture.  And I think when [00:12:00] I became a teenager as I was trying to figure out, how to fit in and everything like that, it's like, oh, this is part of me I could never change.  You know, so why not kind of embrace it. So I think those countercultures spoke to me as this is who we are, these are the things we like and we embrace it. So I think that kind of really spoke, to me on a subconscious level.

Duncan: Did you feel like there were a lot of other high schoolers that were from immigrant backgrounds like yourself, that were seeing the world in the same way.

Angelo: I think so. Well, the nice thing about our high school is again, it was like majority [00:12:30] minority.

 There were not a lot of Caucasian students at my school, 

So I think going to college was very different. I think that's when I had the true kind of culture shock is like being around, people from all over the world and not just being in your own bubble where you're not used to seeing certain people from certain groups and certain experiences.

 At Berkeley. Angelo encountered a different world

 

6.2 Culture Shock 

Duncan: Can you describe when you realized that you weren't in Southeast San Diego anymore?

Angelo: I mean, just college orientation, like there's these people that already went to private school, and have been a concert [00:13:00] pianist or playing cello all my life, and have performed at the symphony, things like that, you know, it was like, oh wow, I've never had any of that going.

I don't have any accomplishments to speak of besides academically. And then, just the, varieties of that which was very eye-opening for me and also kind of made me feel like, there are people outside of where I grew up that have just a different set of privileges than I did.

And I never really ventured out in high school enough to interact with people outside of my own community it's really just the general experience, just stepping [00:13:30] outside of your own bubble for the first 18 years of your life, which, college is great for.

Duncan: And how was that experience over the years? Interacting with people from different places.

Angelo: I think at first it was very alienating because you feel a little deficient, right? Or I, felt a little deficient 'cause you know. Moving here our family, financially struggling, realizing that, other students were getting soccer practice, music lessons, swimming lessons, all this stuff, you kinda get exposed to things you didn't have, [00:14:00] what a, more average, American upbringing is like, and I think for the first year in college, it was very shocking and demoralizing I would say.

Because they're my peers in classes, but we were coming from such different levels of experience and education and it was just somewhat hard to believe that you're still held to the same standard.

Duncan: Academically, Angelo struggled. The study strategies that had worked in high school were not enough anymore.

6.2 Culture Shock

Duncan: How was the academic side of things? 

Rethinking How to Learn (tutoring and humility)

Angelo: Yeah. it was really [00:14:30] hard because I remember in my own AP classes in high school, I remember just studying by myself a lot, I just remember not really learning during lecture in class and when I would do practice questions on the same thing we covered, I was like, I feel like this concept wasn't communicated well in class. So I would have to just study up on my own, read the textbook on my own a lot. Um, and that applied to a lot of, my AP classes. So when I went to college, I remember just feeling like this is a lot to learn, and I don't think I [00:15:00] could really do it by myself anymore because the rigor was so much higher.

So ultimately it was pretty difficult to academically perform the way I wanted to or expected to the first couple years.

Duncan: So you're used to doing quite well in school

how was it dealing with maybe suboptimal results or not being as good a student as you were used to being? Yeah.

Angelo: There were times in, the first year of college where I considered taking a semester off because it was a combination of my academic performance. I just wasn't really [00:15:30] getting it, and also kind of just missing home. It was very discouraging. But when I realized after maybe the first year that I couldn't study for this the same way I used to. That's when I started looking for help. I remember I started going to the tutoring classes.

 Every college has their own tutoring center, so I enrolled in those classes to be like, I need supplemental learning to really catch up. And, that was different for me. But in the best way, you know, is kind of just realizing that you need help, and that kind of getting over the fact that, the things I used to do was [00:16:00] more out of survival. And, you're trying to survive a different set of rules and you kind of have to adapt and find a way that works despite the things you've done on your own, your whole life. 

Duncan: Angelo decided to major in cell biology, but he quickly realized that the major attracted many premedical students.

Angelo: I decided early on that I was gonna do biology, like cell biology. And unfortunately that's the major with all the premeds, I wasn't quite sure, about medicine. I'm not sure that's what I wanted to do with [00:16:30] biology per se, but it did interest me because I did volunteer at a hospital in high school.

I was, generally really attracted to helping people. But I think having a lot of classes with classmates that were pre-med or, pre-health at Berkeley, I kind of felt like an outsider of that too. They were very, rigorous and, I think at that time I wasn't in the right head space. And that kind of just pushed me away from being pre-med at that point.

Duncan: When you say rigorous, do you mean competitive too?

Angelo: Competitive, very organized, very, [00:17:00] dead set that, I need to do this, this, and this, and I'll be in med school by the time I graduate college. And that's kind of just the general vibe.

Duncan: While his classmates seemed laser focused on medical school, Angelo was exploring working in research labs, protesting and volunteering with high school students from under-resourced communities like his own.

Angelo: Yeah. I was, more floating around like different options. I worked in a couple research labs trying to find out what type of biology I wanted to do, like what kind of lab I wanted to be in. A lot of my extracurriculars were like [00:17:30] volunteering as well.

 I was part of the multicultural student group in college, so that's where we did a lot of protesting. So I was very engaged trying to advocate for minority communities in that way. So those are kind of the two big things I did in college, I would say.

Duncan: And did you find a community of people that you could connect with on those issues?

Angelo: Yeah. Yeah. it was first one of the Filipino groups on campus. That's where I was able to, kind of find a home base, and then they were part of this, multicultural student group. Their main goal was to do a lot of outreach to high school [00:18:00] students, community college students that grew up in under resourced schools, like in California. I would spend spring break driving through Central California and going to schools telling students the ways that they can go to college or that it was possible for them. Because, those are the things that were important to me 

9. Post-Grad Lab Reality Check

Duncan: Angelo reflects on his interest in bench research and the lack of overall mentorship he felt, except for one postdoctoral researcher or postdoc

Angelo: I was thinking of doing a PhD, when I finished college, because I had a really positive experience in a virology [00:18:30] lab towards the end of undergrad. Unfortunately I didn't really have strong mentorship with any of my postdocs that I work with.

Duncan: Were there any mentors that stood out to you that were helping guide you along this career path?

Angelo: Just the last, one, like six months before I graduated in the virology lab. Again, I think six months was not enough time. But I did think he was the best mentor I had in science, in undergrad because he, played a genuine interest.

He was really involved in our project and, we stayed in touch a couple years after that.

 When I told him that I wanted to stay in research, he wrote my cover [00:19:00] letter and everything like that and I would still reach out to him for advice, especially when, I moved on to working in a lab.

Duncan: what was key to making that connection with him, do you think?

Angelo: I think he was also from like, kind of a underrepresented background. I think he saw that in me. I think he was originally from Puerto Rico and I think, he wanted to pass that along to someone who had a similar background.

Duncan: After graduation, Angelo worked in a microbiology lab thinking that he might pursue a PhD. However, the reality of bench research was [00:19:30] different than what he had hoped.

 And then you found a job outside of Berkeley.those can be difficult and challenging to find. How, how did that work out?

Angelo: it took a while, to be honest with youI had my general interests, but then when you have student loans coming up and then you, have to, pay the bills and everything like that.

It's like you kind of loosen your standards a little bit. But I did end up at a lab which I was genuinely interested in So, I was able to get that couple months after graduating, which I was very lucky.

Duncan: And you spent two years there,

Angelo: Mm-hmm.

Duncan: [00:20:00] So when I began in that, microbiology lab, I was thinking, oh, this will really make or break my decision. 

Angelo: I just remember being stressed all the time and, my postdoc that I worked with in that project. He really tried to lay things out but there was also, a language barrier.

 There was a cultural barrier as well, and I just don't think that, the communication was there to really, perform the way he expected me to.

10. The MPH Detour and A Mentor's Mirror

Duncan: After two years working in a molecular biology lab, he felt that a research career was no longer the right path [00:20:30] for him.

Angelo: I realized a year in that I didn't wanna do a PhD anymore, just because of that experience and just being in the lab for a year, I was like, I don't see bench research for the rest of my life.

I had to do a lot of soul searching. And I actually, thought about going to public health school, doing an MPH because, a lot of my undergrad experience was just volunteering and working with people from under-resourced backgrounds and I was still interested in science. I started thinking about the applications for health a little bit more.

[00:21:00] So I thought it was just kind of logical to try to make that transition. So I, applied to a master's in public health program, after those two years were over and, ended up starting a public health program a couple months after that.

Duncan: In Chicago, enrolled in a master's of public health program, Angelo faced a moment of truth.

Angelo: I got accepted to a program in Chicago. And I remember, I was really excited to learn about epidemiology, because It's like the basic science of public health, which I really enjoyed.

And also liked learning about, things [00:21:30] that affect populations, on that level. Unfortunately, things happened where I I had to do some more thinking about if I also wanted to continue pursuing that for the rest of my career.

Duncan: So did you finish your MPH out there?

Angelo: I did not.

Duncan: Okay. What happened?

Angelo: I think about this a lot where I, you know, there's a lot of like transitions happening in life at the time and I, started the program, I was a couple months in, and while I was enjoying what I was learning, this kind of gut feeling started kind of growing in me that [00:22:00] this also wasn't the thing I wanted to do as a majority of my time professionally. I remember coming back, home to my apartment in Chicago, kind of just feeling pretty despondent because I can't really define what this, like, this feeling is not good.

And I think it's also that sinking feeling in your gut that it's like, I think it's because I also don't see a future in this, or like my future in this. And I kind of thought about it the rest of that evening and, I reached out to one of my faculty mentors to be like, Hey, I [00:22:30] would like to talk, what is something else I can do? Because, I realized at the time the thing that made me the most fulfilled in college, and undergrad was just working with people directly 

  I wish I'd kind of done more research about it before deciding to start that program, but, that's just how things worked out.

Duncan: What happened next would change his path. Angelo reached out to a faculty mentor, an epidemiologist, who was also a physician.

How did that meeting go with the faculty advisor?

Angelo: [00:23:00] It was actually really good. I'm very grateful I was paired with him, and this is kind of like me growing into maturity too, about the importance of mentorship because he just had a really honest conversation with me. I was lucky because he was an epidemiologist, but he went through medical school as well and he was a physician, before he became a professor in epidemiology.

So he kind of had that experience for me to talk to him about, because I told him that I think what I'm wrestling with is realizing that in this field, I'm not gonna be directly working with [00:23:30] people that I will have an impact on. It's a larger scale than that, you know?

And, I'm not just not sure that's what's going to make me fulfilled. And, he told me, he was have you thought about medicine? And I was like, I had a general interest in volunteering in college and in high school, I kind of pushed it aside because, you know, I didn't fit that mold.

I didn't see myself being that type of person to be in medicine. And he told me that some sort of healthcare sounds like what you're looking for and I think you should think about medicine a little bit more, because he knew me [00:24:00] for a couple months.

It was like, you wouldn't come to me like, ask for this meeting if you didn't have a sense of integrity about who you are and what you want. So I think you really want to be authentic to what your goals are and if that's what's going to make you happy, I would support you, stopping this program and kind of figure, out what's next.

 And I really appreciated that discussion because I think he kind of put into words, what, I was struggling with was just this sense of authenticity, right? Like I couldn't see myself [00:24:30] pursuing something that I wasn't gonna give my all to and that wasn't going to be fulfilling.

******

Angelo: I think with the knowledge of myself I had and that's what kind of gave me the courage the other option was to see it through. And maybe pursue medicine afterwards, but it was, gonna be a really long time to do that in something that I really, you know, maybe was, kind of half engaged in.

I found that I have to be fully engaged in something to really pursue. I just can't go through life like that. So, that meeting just provided a lot of clarity and I ended up going back home to San Diego to really [00:25:00] just figure my life out.

Duncan: how did you feel that night after you met him Did you feel energized? Did you feel despondent?

Angelo: I felt relieved. I didn't feel energized because the next steps were just going to be also hard. The decision to leave was hard, the decision where to go next was also hard, because going into medicine, right. It's like I have the classes, but it's just so much more to do after that.

And it's like, it's gonna be hard either way. Like finishing the MPH gonna be hard, trying to do medicine also going to be hard. So it's like, [00:25:30] what is the hard that you choose?

Duncan: Did you feel like that decision was made that night that you were going to pursue medicine?

Angelo: I think in my soul, yes, but in my head, I wanted to be a little bit more measured

 

Angelo's story reminds us that the path to medicine can be filled by twists and turns. His story is shaped by underfunded schools and culture shock, by financial constraints and moments of self-doubt, 

 But it's also shaped by mentors who saw him clearly and who helped him see himself.

 For [00:26:00] Angelo, it took leaving a master's program to find his calling. It took years of searching to understand that what fulfilled him most was working directly with people. And it took a mentor who recognized that same struggle to help Angelo find his way. On part two of this episode, we will follow Angelo's journey back to San Diego, where he works towards a career in medicine.

 Thank you for listening to the EthnoMed podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Please go to our website [00:26:30] at ethnomed.org for additional resources. See you on part two of our interview with Dr. Angelo Cabal.

End of Part 1