Dr. Miriam Padilla Vargas
Dr. Miriam Del Carmen Padilla Vargas was born on October 31st, 1978, in the Río Piedras district of San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is currently an endocrinologist at Intermountain Health’s Utah Valley Clinic and provides care to those in the Provo, Utah area.
Dr. Padilla Vargas moved to Maryland when she was seven years old so her father could attend medical school on the mainland. Both of her parents were doctors in Puerto Rico, and her father was the mayor of San Juan before they moved away. A tumultuous political environment in Puerto Rico also played a part in her parents wanting to leave.
Alongside her work in medicine, Dr. Padilla Vargas is also the Executive Director of Bomba Marilé, a non-profit organization whose mission is to share Afro-Puerto Rican traditions of Bomba music, dance, and ancestral stories throughout Utah. She is also a registered Taíno tribal member, which is an indigenous group in Puerto Rico.
Dr. Padilla Vargas attended medical school at Case Western Reserve University and completed her residency and fellowship at the University of Southern California. She was awarded the National Health Service Scholarship to fully cover her time in medical school in exchange for working in an underserved area. This led to Dr. Padilla Vargas working at the country’s largest free health clinic, Venice Family Clinic, which is based in Los Angeles.
Being a woman in medicine, Dr. Padilla Vargas has faced sexual harassment in her work environment and discrimination based on her gender and ethnicity. She also states that different hairstyles in the past, such as dyed hair or braids has made it hard to gain trust amongst patients, as many people in Utah view that as an inappropriate look for a doctor.
Dr. Padilla Vargas claims that her goal in both her career in medicine and her directorship of Bomba Marilé is to continue to create safe spaces for people of color in Utah.
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Acknowledgments:
| Narrator | Interviewer(s) | Digital Content Creator |
| Dr. Miriam Padilla | Shayla Sanchez | Melia Cook |