Washington Heights Natives Return to Study Medicine and Give Back to the Community

April 1, 2008

When he was a student at the College of Physicians and Surgeons (P&S) at Columbia University, Carlos Rodriguez would walk from 168th Street, where he spent most of his days and nights studying, to visit his mother on 193rd Street. The walk was cathartic and reminded him that “having [a] connection with the community was always a big part of me.”

 

Today, he is a doctor giving back to the community where he was raised. Since 1992, Rodriguez, MD, MPH, has been at P&S focusing on hypertensive heart disease among Hispanics and where he is assistant professor of clinical medicine and clinical epidemiology. His patients are also his neighbors—about 95 percent of patients under his care are from the surrounding Washington Heights area where P&S is located or from other neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan.

 

“The fact that so many people from the community work at the medical center and so many patients and people participating in research studies are also from the community has made it very easy to stick around all these years,” said Dr. Rodriguez.

— Original article is from the Winter 2008 issue of P&S Journal.