Allison Castro loves helping people, that’s why she is going to be a doctor.

It’s also why she has been going to St. Andrew's Children's Clinic for the past five years as a volunteer.

Castro enjoys going to the Clinic because it allows her to be one-on-one with patients and is a great way to practice the skills and knowledge that are gained in medical school.

For Castro, the most fulfilling part of every trip is the patients.

“Once you go often enough, you see the same patients. Some start as babies and go until they are 18,” Castro said. “It’s really cool to feel like you’re forming a relationship with them and their parents and seeing them get the care they need.”

Castro is now in her second year of medical school at the University of Arizona. She attended the University of Southern California for her undergraduate studies where she majored in biological sciences and Spanish.

Being fluent in Spanish allows her to translate at the clinic and provides her the opportunity to have a more personal relationship with patients. She usually works in the ophthalmology department as a translator and assists doctors in the pediatrics department.

Castro has two different perspectives on the Clinic.

“From the patient perspective, this is a wonderful resource; it’s neat to see that people travel so far…and then receive real top notch care they wouldn’t normally get,” Castro said. “From a medical perspective, it provides us the opportunity to work with a patient population that’s very different from the ones we serve here (in the U.S.). We get to see a different side of medicine.”

Castro started volunteering at the Clinic while she was still at USC. She went down there on breaks from school with her mom, who is a nurse and also volunteers at the clinic.

She likes that the clinic is unique in how it’s one of the only clinics that serves Mexico from the United States.

“It’s amazing to be able to get surgery from world renowned surgeons—I love that about it,” Castro says. “Here, we get annoyed when we have to wait to see a doctor. Patients at the clinic don’t complain about anything."

With the demanding schedule of her first year of medical school, Castro was not too involved last year. Now, she is a coordinator and tries to go down every month.

Along with St. Andrew’s, Castro also volunteers with other organizations. She is involved in the Sight Savers program at the UA medical school, a program that offers free glaucoma screenings. She is also involved in the Commitment to Underserved People Program in which student leaders design, organize, and manage health education programs in under-served areas.

From all of this, it’s clear that Castro has a passion for helping people.

Like any good medical student, Castro also likes going to the clinic because of the experience she gets there and the medical knowledge she gains.

“We get to see things we never see in the United States,” Castro said. “I see kids with heart defects who would have been operated on as babies here, but are now five or six. We get to see things we are lectured about…it gives a nice compliment to my medical education.”

Castro has had many great experiences in her time at the clinic, but has one specific patient that sticks out in her mind the most.

She told the story of an 18-year-old boy who has cerebral palsy and has been coming to the clinic for a long time. He is usually in the pediatrics department because of his physical handicap. Also, he always carries around at stuffed animal with him.

According to Castro, both the boy and his mother are relentless with all of their trips to the clinic.

“His mother is the most patient, beautiful, loving woman. They have to travel about five to six hours on a bus and the mom is not at all fazed about taking the trip back,” Castro says. “The boy is unstable walking and the mom always remains in control…it’s so wonderful and really inspiring.”

Experiences like this is why Castro continues to be so involved with the clinic.

As for the future, Castro plans on graduating from medical school in 2010. After that, she has three or four years of a residency.

She envisions herself going into the fields of family medicine, internal medicine, or pediatrics, all of which would allow her to have close relationships with her patients.

In her free time, Castro enjoys spending time with her husband and dog. Also, like most young people these days, she likes watching Grey’s Anatomy even though, she said “they always have the most extreme cases.”

She also plans to continue volunteering because it gives her good balance to all of the studying she does.

“It makes you remember why you stay up late studying and know patients will really need you,” Castro said. “It reminds you why you’re there in the first place. It makes the not-so-fun aspects of medical school fun.”