Driven to be Doctors Latina Alumnae Bring Compassionate Care to Underserved Populations BY A B BY W E I N G A RT E N ’0 0
As a young girl growing up in rural Colombia, alumna Dr. Valeria Valbuena felt deeply called to take care of her community. When she moved to the Sarasota-Manatee area to attend college, she didn’t speak any English. Today, she is a physician and a general surgery resident at the University of Michigan, and she credits much of her intellectual courage to her time as a “fearless learning” Novo Collegian. “I finished high school in Colombia and moved to Bradenton in 2008, and I got lucky that a world-class liberal arts education was just down the street from where I moved,” Dr. Valbuena said, adding that her father worked a seasonal job on Longboat Key and flew back and forth to South America. “In Colombia, we were in a low socioeconomic class, but there was always a strong push in my family to pursue higher education. There was not really an opportunity to support the academic development of a student from my background in my home country.” But there was in Southwest Florida. Initially, Dr. Valbuena attended State College of Florida, until Jane Pfeilsticker (a now-retired biology and biotechnology professor), steered her toward New College. Dr. Valbuena transferred in 2010 and began pursuing a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry.
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New College of Florida | nimbus
“I always knew I wanted to become a physician. There was a lot of need around me growing up, and I saw the value that the physicians in my community had. But I honestly didn’t know what it took to do that here in the United States,” said Dr. Valbuena, who graduated in 2013. “In Colombia, you finish high school after 11 grades and start medical school right away. When I moved to the U.S., it was a surprise to me to find out that I needed to do four to five years of undergrad first.” Pivoting quickly, Dr. Valbuena found New College to coincidentally be the ideal place to complete those unexpected undergraduate years. “I was attracted to the curricular structure of New College— the opportunity to explore aspects of my education that I wasn’t able to focus on at community college because I was busy checking in boxes for my prerequisites,” Dr. Valbuena said. “I learned how to think at New College because they
