I sat next to Frankie (pseudonym), a Puerto Rican man, in the hospital for weeks as he battled a new cancer diagnosis.

He confided in me, partly because I spoke to him in Spanish.

On my last day of seeing Frankie, he said, "I want to tell you a story."

1/x

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1850613597304455412

Frankie grew up in Puerto Rico and wanted to serve his country during a time of crisis.

He joined the U.S. Air Force as a medic when the U.S. plunged into war against al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the brutal Iraqi dictator.

2/x

This is my mom.

She was an asylum seeker.
She slept in a church b/c she had nowhere else to go.
She is a housekeeper & a waitress.
She is my hero.
These degrees are for her.

Harvard Medical School, M.D. ✅
Harvard Business School, M.B.A. ✅
Harvard Kennedy School of Government, M.P.P. ✅

You made history happen, mom.

1/4 This is my dad.

He was shot twice fighting for democracy in his home country, Nicaragua.
He lost his brother in battle.
His calloused hands remind me of the manual labor he worked to make sure I could focus on school.
He transports elderly patients to their doctors' appointments.
He is a warrior.

You kept us strong, dad.

2/4

On Thursday, I graduated from the Harvard Business School & the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

On Tuesday, I restart my 7th and final year at Harvard Medical School.

Next year, I will become the 1st person in history to graduate from these three institutions.

1/x As excited as this makes me, what truly makes me smile is doing this as the son of two formerly undocumented, non-English speaking immigrant parents who slept in the attic of a church for 2 years when they first arrived in the U.S...

2/x

We hear it often: "Kaiser spends $50M on housing," "United HC donates $3M to food security..." so we asked, how much are private insurers REALLY spending on #SDOH?

Our work in @JournalGIM attempts to answer this Q -- you may or may not be surprised.

link.springer.com/article/10.100…

1/x After identifying social spending for the top 20 US health insurers by market share (66%+ of the total market), we found that:

1. 💰 Bw 2017-2021, social spending was at least $1.87 billion

2. 🏩 The top 6 insurers made up nearly 3/4 of that spending

2/x

During my second year of medical school, I rotated through the trauma surgery department at one of Boston's most prestigious hospitals.

In my first two weeks, I met some exceptional residents and got to scrub into awesome cases.

But everything changed one week later.

1/🧵 A new intern and resident joined the team.

I always looked forward to meeting the medical trainees, since I often thought about becoming a trauma surgeon. They were role models in my eyes.

Slowly, though, they proved me wrong.

2/

Before starting my junior year of college, I made a trip to the local Walmart. I shopped for chicken, eggs, and milk when I noticed a man shyly approaching other customers.

He looked to be in his forties, and I could overhear him nervously speaking in Spanish.

1/x The first customer he approached waved him away. Then the second, and the third. I continued shopping until I felt a hand lightly tap my shoulder.

It was the man, we'll call him Miguel. He asked for spare change, but I remorsefully told him that I barely had enough $ for..

2/x

My 59-year-old uncle died last night from #covid19. He was one of my biggest supporters, a devoted father to his children, and a loving brother to my mother and her siblings.

His name is Jorge Garcia and this is my part of his story.

1/x I first met my uncle Jorge when I visited Guatemala as a child. He lived with his wife and children in a barrio filled with family and friends--they never had much, but he worked tirelessly to maintain their home.

When opportunity struck however, he traveled to America.

2/x