Vol. 14, No. 2, Winter 2000/01

Student Corner
Profile: Laura Williams, MD, MPH

by Jacquelyn Ross

Dr. Laura Williams is a Southern California Native woman from tribes in Orange and Los Angeles counties, the Acjachemem (Jauneno) and Tongva (Gabrielino). She works at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) at the College of Medicine. In the Department of Family Medicine, she serves as Director of Community Medicine and Outreach to Special Populations. Dr. Williams is believed to be the first California Indian woman to become a medical doctor, and one of few to hold a faculty position in the UC system.

Being "the first" in anything can be a lonely road. How did Dr. Williams reach her goals? What path did she take? Laura Williams attended high school at St. Paul in Santa Fe Springs, California. She then went to Whittier College, a private school and transferred to the University of Southern California as an Indian Health Service (IHS) scholarship awardee. During college, she explored possibilities in the health world by volunteering at various hospitals and clinics. A pivotal experience came in 1986 when she began work at the Los Angeles American Indian Free Clinic. There, she met Indian physicians who would become her mentors and encouraged her to aim high. These doctors were members of the Association of American Indian Physicians (AAIP) , an organization of Native professionals nationwide who help support each other and promote improvements in health care for Indian country. Her relationship with this group continues today as the AAIP is a supporter of her urban community research efforts.

With the support of her mentors and boosted confidence, Laura applied to medical schools. The prestigious Tufts School of Medicine accepted her as a student. This meant that she would have to move all the way across the country to Boston, Massachusetts. She started medical school in 1987 and continued to be active in the Native American community. Throughout the entirety of her medical education, she served on the council of the Association of Native American Medical Students (ANAMS). Medical school was challenging, but again, the future doctor tapped into a network of determined students and teachers to share and offer support.

When medical school was complete, Williams came back home and started her internship at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) – Ventura County Medical Center. She completed her residency training at the Glendale Adventist Medical Center, serving as Chief Resident in her final year. At this point, she was even more deeply committed to community health and helping people who did not have access to appropriate health care services. Following her interest in this particular health arena, Dr. Williams completed the first Multi-Cultural Community Oriented Primary care Fellowship at the Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. Additionally, she earned a Master’s of Public Health degree on a university grant funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

When she finished her fellowship, Dr. Williams wanted to come home and work with her tribal people and others in the area that needed medical care. But in order to fulfill her scholarship obligation, she needed to work for a federally qualified health center in a health professional shortage area. There is not a federally funded American Indian Health Center in Orange County. So again across the country she went, this time to work as Chief Medical Officer for the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Nine months later, in the beautiful but humid Everglades, Williams was still dreaming of Southern California.

She did not know that a cycle of events was starting that would bring her back.

Enter UC Irvine. In early 1997, the Medical Center at UCI started to talk with local Indian people about their health care needs. The UCI Family Health Center in Santa Ana
hired Dr. Williams to assist in organizing a new American Indian health initiative. Her work included teaching medical students and medical residents about the health needs of under-served people. In 1998, the Southern California Indian Center, Inc. received a grant to provide health screening on a Mobile Health Unit in Los Angeles. This would allow bringing medical services to come to the people who needed them. Now, patients could receive health screenings and tests on a more consistent and convenient basis. Last fall, the budget for the mobile unit was doubled and more staff came to assist with the mobile unit work. Williams became the medical director for the first health and wellness unit to serve a local urban American Indian population. In this capacity, she established a model program that focuses on screening and collecting health information on urban Indian people.

Dr. Williams is also working in the area of urban Indian women and cancer control. The American Cancer Society is funding part of her clinical service and research time through their Career Development Award. Dr. Williams has also secured financial support from the State of California Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program to help fund pap smears and mammograms. She in involved with a number of projects including "Weavers of a Healthier Community," a group that combined basket weaving education and women’s health education. Continuing with her passion for community health and health access and equity for urban Indians, Dr. Williams is the director for the new Native American Health Research Initiative at the UC Irvine Center for Health Policy and research.

She has a six year old daughter, Juliana Victoria Hernandez, who accompanies her on weekend trips to various health projects. Dr. Williams says "I’m trying to raise Juliana to be involved in community service. She is inquisitive and interested. We need to work with our children from a very young age to instill in them a concern not only for an education, but for using their education for community service."

As a young student, Dr. Williams worked hard in school, asked for help, and tried out new environments. She was willing to explore the unknown, even when that took her far from home. She turned passion, curiosity, and a sense of adventure into tools that helped her become a skilled, caring doctor, and a leader in the medical community. She is one of a long line of "firsts" for the Indian community. Are you next?