Every child has aspirations of what they want to be when they grow up, whether it be a firefighter, police officer or astronaut. For Derek Rodriguez ’23, that dream was to be a medical doctor.
And when, at the age of 8, he was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer in children that affects muscle tissue, that experience ignited this passion to want to help other cancer patients.
“When you go through that as a child, you learn to think, ‘Oh, what if I grow up to be a superhero in this field? Imagine the impact I could have helping other individuals navigate and enhance their survivorship journey,’” Rodriguez says.
Today, Rodriguez is 22 years cancer-free and a senior clinical research scientist in the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the UT San Antonio Health Science Center. Read more on Sombrilla Magazine Online to learn how Rodriguez is conducting research on Latino cancer survivorship.
