Once a farmworker, California doctor returns to the fields to treat migrant kids

Growing up, Dr. Ramon Resa didn't see any physicians in his community that looked like him.

Resa, now 65, grew up in California's Central Valley. He was abandoned as a toddler and raised by a family with 14 children. He started picking cotton at 3, and continued to work the fields through high school. It was hard work, and Resa often had to miss school; when he was there, he had to fight to be placed in college prep classes.

He persevered, and when it came time to pick a career path, he thought about how meaningful it would be to serve as a doctor in his community. Resa knew many Latino people who were misdiagnosed or ignored by local doctors, and he wanted to break that cycle. "I thought, well, what am I doing in college? I should go be a doctor," he told ABC Los Angeles on Thursday. "My people need a doctor. That was my inspiration."

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Resa graduated from the University of California Irvine Medical School, and just like he planned, he returned to the Central Valley, where he has been a pediatrician for more than three decades. He treats the children of migrant workers, and also travels around the country to share his story with young people. Resa, the subject of a recent documentary film, Ramon Rising, told The Mercury News last year that he aims to be a role model for kids who face the same obstacles that once stood in his way. Catherine Garcia