Meet Dr. Molina, the newest medical staff at Phoenix Men’s Health Center! We answered the questions you’ve been itching to know.
Q: Where are you from?
A: I was born in West Covina, California, and then I was raised in Rialto, California. I first moved to Arizona in 2005, and I went to medical assistant school in Tempe. For my undergraduate degree, I went to National University of Health Sciences, in outskirts of Chicago, Illinois, where I got a degree in biomedicine. I moved back to Tempe and went to Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, where I graduated in 2017 with my Doctor of Naturopathy degree!
Q: What do you do in your free time?
A: I love sports and movies—especially because I work with sports. I played 17 years of baseball (I was a pitcher), up to high school and recreationally in college. Nolan Ryan is my baseball hero, it’s who I grew up hearing about from my dad. I also hang out with my colleagues from medical school.
Q: Why did you become a doctor?
A: When I was four years old, I was misdiagnosed with Leukemia. I have vivid memories of being in the hospital. I’m sure my parents were very worried but as a four-year-old, I didn’t know that it was a bad thing to be in the hospital! Looking back, I was anemic, urinating blood, they did a bone marrow biopsy, called in specialists, but at that time I didn’t know what was really going on. It ended up being an infection. I was at Loma Linda hospital, and there was this resident named Ken. Although I didn’t understand what was going on with me, he spent all this time with me just talking to me and caring for me, even though he didn’t have to. He gave me the attention and that stuck with me and motivated me. Ever since then, I knew that I wanted to go into the medical field and care for people the way Ken did for me.
Q: What is your medical philosophy?
A: I truly believe in educating my patients. The word doctor is derived from the Latin term docere, which means to teach. In addition, I really stick by treating the person as an individual, not just looking at the symptoms and prescribing something to treat the symptoms. That’s also why I’m in naturopathic medicine.
Q: Why did you become a Naturopathic Doctor instead of going into traditional medicine?
A: In the beginning, I was actually headed to become an MD because it’s the only thing I knew. Growing up, in my late teens and early twenties, I started losing confidence in medicine. I would go see the doctor, and they would barely spend 10 minutes with you, and treat your symptoms instead of truly caring about you. Then, while I was in medical assisting school, I took a medical terminology class with Dr. Laura Lambert. She also happens to be a classmate of Dr. Le Provost (which I learned much later on—it’s a small world)! She was the one who introduced me to naturopathic medicine. She said that she could treat people as a doctor, do lab testing and diagnostics, but had a bigger toolbox that she could use for treatment, including nutrition, counseling, botanical medicine, and more. So I looked into it and it led me to getting my undergraduate degree and then my ND!
Q: What do you like most about working at Phoenix Men’s Health Center?
A: I love working here! At Phoenix Men’s Health Center, I really have the freedom to treat the patients the way I like to, compared to other places where I would have to follow strict protocols. I get to bring the care to the individual person and cater to their needs here, and I work with awesome staff and a great mentor!
