Alexis I. Alemán

Alexis Ivan Alemán is a fourth-year medical student at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and president of Foos In Medicine, a social media platform through which he and fellow medical student, Irvin Garcia Real, encourage other Latinx, first generation students like themselves to persist in the medical field. He is the oldest of four children from Mexican immigrant parents, born and raised in South Central LA. Growing up, Mr. Alemán never thought he would be in medical school; in fact, he never thought about college until 11th grade in high school. While at California State University-Northridge (CSUN), Mr. Alemán learned he wanted to join the medical field, partly due to never having met a Latino physician or medical student, but did not believe he could do it. With his parents always at work, he took care of his brothers from a very young age. Every summer, he would work full-time to help his parents pay for expenses, and this did not stop while in college.

Living in South LA, attending CSUN, working, and getting more involved with school activities, it was tough at times to think about continuing college while his mom was the only one providing for his brothers and his father was incarcerated. Mr. Alemán had family members telling him he should work to help his mom, instead of continuing college. Nonetheless, he applied to a premedical program at UCLA. With the experiences and good grades Mr. Alemán had earned at CSUN, the program believed he was a good candidate for their summer program. During this program, he met another Latino medical student, and this absolutely motivated him further. Mr. Alemán continued at CSUN to obtain a degree in biology and ultimately applied to medical school during the pandemic years. His current goals are to work with underserved populations and help diversify the field of medicine.