Mariela Vega, a third-year medical student at Florida State University’s (FSU) College of Medicine, highlights how she’s giving back to the communities that helped shape her.  

It wasn’t easy to get into medical school, Mariela Vega told the ninth and tenth graders gathered for National Medical Fellowship’s inaugural Health Care Pathways Workshop at Science Park High School in Newark, NJ 

“But if there is someone who believes in you, working to shape and guide you toward the right paths, you will be successful,” she said.  

Vega referred to the Guadalupe Center and her mentor, Ms. Carol, a retired educator who met with her to review college applications and scholarship opportunities;  

She referred to a community physician who connected her with the director of a student clinic at FSU to ensure her grade point average and MCAT scores would be competitive;  

And she referred to NMF, who granted her the resources necessary to pursue clinical research important to her via its ALLIANT Health Solutions/NMF Research Program.  

“Mentorship always comes full circle. I’m a mentor because NMF changed my trajectory with the lifelong connections it’s provided me. And when you invest in community members, they often reinvest back.”  

Born in Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico, Vega moved with her three brothers to Immokalee, Florida at the age of five. Her parents worked in agriculture, and Vega remembers translating at family medical appointments – while still learning English herself.  

“There’s so much lost in translation, and you can’t communicate humanity properly unless you’re speaking the same language,” Vega said.  

That realization, paired with a growing fascination for science and anatomy, ultimately shaped her desire to study medicine.     

 “I want to give patients not only their diagnoses but also tangible guidance and game plans for their health in their own language, while also being able to understand what their fears and questions are,” Vega said.  

Vega earned her undergraduate degree in biology from Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, where she also served as Hispanic Heritage Chair, a research assistant at Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida, and a Spanish interpreter for Cahaba Healthcare.  

After college, she worked as a transporter at Naples Community Hospital before pursuing a master’s degree in medical sciences at the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine. There, she continued volunteering as a Spanish interpreter at the Judeo-Christian Clinic and tutoring students preparing for careers in health care.  

“No one in my family had ever been to medical school, and I myself needed to find mentors and peers with greater academic and financial resources than I had access to.”

Vega balanced studying for the MCAT with community service and professional experience: volunteering with a grassroots foundation to support farm workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, working as a medical assistant at a local clinic, and teaching middle school math for three years.  

Vega also befriended another aspiring physician working in her hometown, and they supported one another through the medical school application process.  

“She shared with me what her advisor was telling her regarding her personal statements, mock interviews, and so forth, and that knowledge was invaluable to my being accepted into medical school,” she said.  

Now at FSU, Vega is not just a student – she’s a leader, having served as a lab and teaching assistant, mentorship and mission trip coordinator, and president of the Latino Medical Student Association. 

It was her summer research fellowship with FSU’s Center for Child Stress and Health that led her to NMF.  

“I applied everywhere for additional research experience and financial assistance, including programs at large hospitals in big cities, but I kept thinking about my hometown – and NMF was one of the only programs presenting me with the opportunity to conduct research in communities like mine.”

Paired with mentors and provided with resources to study the effects of community engagement on maternal trauma and childhood development, NMF helped Vega develop her research into scholarly work to share with others.  

“They helped me convey the importance of maternal mental health and wellbeing not only to my own community but to others as well,” she said. “There are too few services for postpartum mothers, especially for low-income families or for those suffering trauma. We need to bolster community resources for them.”  

Vega recently completed her first rotation in family medicine – and loved it.  

“Doctors need to be compassionate during the lowest points of patients’ lives, but there’s also joy to be shared, too: childbirth, cancer remission, diabetes reversal – we need to offer partnerships and hope to see all our patients through to the other sides,” she said.  

Vega said she’s thankful for the partnerships and communities she’s created with NMF.  

“NMF scholars, alumni, mentors, they’re always there to offer advice,” she said. “NMF develops clinicians who not only think differently and intentionally about incorporating social wellbeing into medicine, but also, when the NMF community gathers, we come up with ideas and solutions I haven’t learned about in school.  

“NMF thinks outside the box to promote health excellence for all, no matter how or where patients live.”