Alberto Ortega

Alberto Ortega, a fourth-year medical student at the Keck School of Medicine, is among nine recipients of this year’s Pisacano Leadership Foundation scholarship. Read the official release. 

Ortega, who’s from Los Angeles, is the second KSOM student in as many years to receive a scholarship. Andrea Banuelos Mota, MD, MPH, was honored in 2021.  

The scholarship is named for Nicholas J. Pisacano, MD, a longtime family medicine professor at the University of Kentucky who died in 1990. The Pisacano Leadership Foundation says the scholarships are “awarded to students attending U.S. medical schools who demonstrate a strong commitment to the specialty of Family Medicine. In addition, each applicant must show demonstrable leadership skills, superior academic achievement, strong communication skills, identifiable character and integrity, and a noteworthy level of community service.”

Ortega graduated from USC with a BS in health promotion and disease prevention, as well as a BA in Spanish. In addition to being an MD candidate, he’s also pursuing an MBA. His interest in dual degrees is “informed by his passion for developing sustainable solutions that address health inequities and improve access to care for vulnerable populations,” according to a biography. “He is committed to becoming a physician who will work to reduce health disparities, and his resolve for doing so is strengthened by his personal experiences.”

It continues:

“Alberto is of Latino descent (Cuban and Mexican) and is the first person in his family to be born in the United States. Having spent his formative years in a low-income, immigrant community in Northeast Los Angeles, Alberto overcame many obstacles while on his career path. Alberto enjoys sharing his own story of adversity with other students from disadvantaged backgrounds and is passionate about mentoring the next generation of diverse physician leaders.”