For Medical and Health Students, a Noble Calling to Serve

The future of society depends on the energy and inexhaustible contributions of youth. Young people hold the key to creating a better future. As part of the health environment, I am passionate about encouraging educators and teachers to consider and rethink the way they connect and engage with upcoming medical students, to show them that there are many ways they can pursue their passion while filling those gaps in the medical field. 

One of the sectors that welcomes young people with open arms is healthcare. This is because we must increase our country's healthcare workforce to help build a more resilient future. We also need a diverse workforce of public health professionals who understand treatment options such as stem cell therapy. Stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine are bursting onto the medical scene. However, doctors, practitioners, and specialists in medicine need to be prepared to identify, refer, and administer safe regenerative therapies. Current medical training in regenerative medicine and knowledge to integrate this type of treatment across medical school training is an important goal to expand next-generation doctors. Stem cell therapy can transform medicine into areas with significant need. Sharing knowledge is key, which is why to save more lives and achieve better results with patients who require a stem cell transplant, we share best practices on cell therapy within the 23 transplant centers in our network.

In Mexico, there are more than 420,000 professionals dedicated to medicine and every year, enrollment in this career increases. That's great news, but it's also not enough to meet the current and future demand for people who need a stem cell transplant to treat diseases such as lymphoma, myeloma, aplastic anemia, leukemia (the most common type of blood cancer in Mexico), among more than 75 other diseases that can be treated with a stem cell transplant, and which, in many cases, represents the last chance of survival for thousands of people around the world. We need help from different fronts, so for young people interested in healthcare, but who do not necessarily want to pursue a career in medicine, there are other ways for them to contribute and make a change. There are more than 65 young volunteers who have helped us to promote the culture of donation over the last seven years since we arrived in Mexico, but we need more voices.

Particularly in Mexico, approximately 2,000 stem cell transplants are required each year, a challenging scenario for the healthcare field. The goal of medical education is to train young doctors to provide consistent, high-quality care while acting as transformative change agents who can save lives. Achieving this ambitious goal requires a workforce with basic medical skills, but that is also prepared to learn and use recent technologies as they develop.

The current field of regenerative medicine presents an opportunity for medical training as stem cell therapy is one of those technologies that can change the way clinical medicine is practiced. 

Cell therapy for me is one of the most exciting and promising fields of medical research;  however, it requires education and training for those students who want to become doctors. More doctors are using cell therapy to treat various chronic diseases.  Young people are becoming more interested in physician training in this field, combined with the sharp increase in the practice of regenerative medicine. Academic training programs that specifically prepare students to treat patients with cell therapies for chronic diseases are needed. 

One of the biggest attractions for young people to pursue a career in public health is the opportunity to make a difference. And there are few fields that offer that opportunity to make as much of an impact as cell therapy. I can proudly say that in our NGO, there are more than 188,000 young people registered in our country. Choosing a career in public health is a vocation. It is a noble act of service of the person who is drawn to help others and make a lasting difference in someone else's life. It allows people to turn their determination and compassion into practical solutions for communities. 

For many people in the younger generations, that is the motivating force that drives them to learn new skills and seek out new experiences in pursuit of the differentiating lifestyle they dream of. When young people are inspired and motivated, they are unstoppable. And the more we teach them to make a difference in a field like healthcare, the better our future will be.