Jeanette Cisneros
Medical Director of the Marina Public Health Clinic in Monterey County, has a remarkable personal and professional story.
Jeanette grew up in San Diego, California in a working-class neighborhood which was predominantly white. Although she and her family experienced racism from certain segments within this setting (being called names, for example), she also took from the experience the ability to feel comfortable around other nationalities.
While growing up, she was surrounded by a large, close extended family. Her family has a history of political and social activism – for example, her maternal grandfather was a union organizer for the mines in northern Mexico. This legacy continued to her aunts and uncles who were active in the civil rights and anti-war movements during the ’60′s.
Join me as I ask her about her growing up years, and to share with us some of the important influences from her youth.
Her family valued education and the seed for becoming a doctor was planted for Jeanette during the summer after high school when she lived with her aunt that had a boarding house for medical students in Guadalajara, Mexico. This was also the summer she met her future husband, Ron Cisneros, who Jeanette describes as “the most influential person in [her] life.” Both she and Ron were attending summer school at the university in Guadalajara and they continued to support each other in their academic and professional life.
Her father was also an important influence on her, and an example of professional achievement when, after growing up in a rough neighborhood, went on to become a respected nuclear physicist.
Jeanette combined both her professional and family life in a unique and inspiring way. We’ll talk to her about her career and family planning choices and how this was a benefit to her professional life.
It was after getting married that Jeanette began her undergraduate studies at the University of California at San Diego, and she actually began medical school five weeks after giving birth to her first child. Incredibly, her husband was studying for the California Bar Exam at the time. Jeanette continued to be able to mesh her family and career pursuits and had another child her third year of medical school and her third child at the end of her last year of residency.
It was actually her residency that took Jeanette to Monterey County, to Salinas, California. She chose Family Medicine as a specialty because of her desire to work with children and women. Jeanette had the opportunity to do both pediatrics and obstetrics with a family medicine program in a rural community.
I’ll be speaking with Jeanette about the practice of medicine in a rural community and what unique challenges she faced there.
At the time Jeanette started her private practice in 1987, she was the only woman doing obstetrics in the Salinas Valley, as well as the only woman physician that could speak Spanish!
In addition to her work in private practice, during the early years of her career, Jeanette also served as an expert witness in court for child sexual abuse cases and participated in a study group based at Oakland Children’s Hospital.
A few years later (in 1989), and in addition to her work and raising a family, she helped establish the Salinas chapter of MANA, a national Latina organization.
After working in private practice for almost ten years, Jeanette founded a county hospital based clinic called the Blanco Medical Clinic.
In 1996, Jeanette’s husband, Ron, committed suicide, and this was a devastating shock to her, as well as an event out of which arose profound life lessons for Jeanette, including that one must never forget to give to oneself, and not just to others.
Jeanette has continued to give, both to her community and to her family. In 2001, she was a founding member of the Hermana scholarship committee providing funds to Latina college students attending college in Monterey Bay, and she currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Community Foundation of Monterey Peninsula. She is active in groups that mentor young students, promote healthy lifestyles, support Latina professionals and maintain an unpolluted environment.
Of course, her community involvement is in addition to her work as the Clinic Medical Director.
However, Jeanette has not forgotten her life lessons. She has raised three amazing children – one a lawyer, one a current medical student, and one a college student. She has also learned to enjoy life in a more relaxed manner and enjoys travel, yoga and hiking.
Join me as I interview this remarkable woman about her professional and personal triumphs, in spite of difficult and sorrowful times, and how she’s come to find her life balance.
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