Getting to Know Dr Fabiola Molina, Hospitalist

Throughout February, The American Journal of Managed Care^® will be introducing you to the next generation of great thinkers and groundbreakers in health care. They represent the fields of oncology, public health, and managed care and are fast making their marks as key opinion leaders in their fields.

Fabiola Molina, MD, MHS, is a practicing hospitalist and assistant professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital. An immigrant from Mexico, she is the first in her family to go to college, during which she participated in PRIME (Programs in Medical Education) while attending medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. Her experiences straddling 2 worlds, while attempting to navigate with her family the complicated safety-net system for health care in Texas were key influences to her ardent focus on health equity.

“A lot of the mentors that I had—who had what from the outside look like these incredible careers that I wanted to model after—for a lot of them, the common thread was, “What's your why?” Whether it's personal experiences, whether it's experiences that people have had taking care of patients, I think going back to that in moments of uncertainty is what keeps you on the path and what will eventually help prevent some of that burnout that can creep in in such a challenging career,” she underscores. “Whatever that means for a young person, having their trusted network, having their why written in their journal, or however they want to keep the presence of mind for that is what I would recommend.”

We hope you enjoy getting to know Dr. Molina and uncovering the motivation behind her passion for health equity, her interests in helping underserved populations receive the care they need and deserve, and how her lived experiences were the jumping off point for her career in medicine.

For our previous interviews in this series, you can click on any of the names below:

• Chandler Cortina, MD, MS, FSSO, FACS, assistant professor of surgery and breast surgical oncologist at Froedtert & Medical College of Wisconsin
• Doug Marks, MD, director of the NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island Cancer Clinical Trials Office and associate professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine
• Shauna Downs, PhD, MS, associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior, Society and Policy at the Rutgers School of Public Health