My name's Andrew Brian Pastor. I was born on December 8th, 1994 in Hollywood, CA and raised in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County. I am a proud son of Jewish Argentine, Mexican, and Filipino immigrants. My mami is an inspiring high school chemistry teacher, my papi is a master sewing machine mechanic, and my stepmom is a nurse professor (now PhD). I am the older brother to two sisters and two stepbrothers. I attended San Dimas High School (go Saints!) where I fell in love with music through marching band, drumline, and drum corps.

Graduating high school I initially imagined for myself a career as a percussionist. I got so much personal and creative fulfillment out of playing music and it served as an incredibly important and healthy escape through times I look back on as quite challenging.  While I continued to find meaning and purpose from music in college, I began to feel other callings. The particular experience of being present with my loved ones through challenging times of sickness helped me realize that I found deep, day to day fulfillment and motivation from being present with and holding space for others.  A deeply ingrained curiosity for science (thanks mami) and love for multiple medical tv shows (thanks papi), caused me to begin aspiring towards work in healthcare.

My interest in healthcare was first cultivated at Mt. San Antonio College, under the mentorship of Dr. Carmen Rexach who led the Mt. SAC Caduceus Club and encouraged me to pursue a career in medicine. I was initially motivated to learn more about public health because I felt that it was the field where I could have the widest potential for positive impact. During my second year of college I worked as a health insurance outreach educator delivering medi-cal and Affordable Care Act resources to my community college colleagues and wider community. I learned that community college students are disproportionately underinsured and began hearing story after story of the ways it was incredibly challenging to gain access to care. Listening to these personal stories, I began to understand deeply how disproportionately broken our social system is; my political fire was fueled and my professional journey was set.

At Mt. SAC I met some of my absolute best friends and had the privilege to learn alongside so many intelligent and inspiring individuals. I was particularly nurtured by the Mt. SAC Honor's Program and my incredible advisor Randy Wilson as well as Dr. Frances Borella and The Native American Intertribal Student Alliance (NAISA). Dr. Borella introduced me to Barbara Anderson, a global nurse midwife, who inspired me deeply with her incredible stories of traveling the world working with and educating midwives.

After two very special years at Mt. SAC I transferred to UC Berkeley with the Regents' and Chancellor's scholarship. I volunteered as a research assistant within the maternal health division of the Bixby Center for Population, Health, and Sustainability. Working under the guidance of Ashley Fraser and Dr. Ndola Prata, our project focused on expanding access to safe abortion and other family planning resources in Rwanda following a local abortion policy expansion. This work was impactful and I was grateful to be around so many inspiring public health practitioners. I learned a lot but found myself feeling slightly let down by this experience of Public Health, spending so many hours looking at spreadsheets, far from the people being impacted.

During my time at UC Berkeley I also volunteered as a medical assistant and Spanish interpreter at the Street Level Health Project (Proyecto de Salud Para Todos), a legal and health-aid grassroots organization which serves as a critical access point and safety net for recently arrived immigrants and day laborers. The loving and communal environment fostered at Street Level existed in deep contrast to what I had personally witnessed in various formal healthcare institutions. The power of this space, along with the urging of colleagues, professors, and doctors I worked with reassured me on the path to medical school.

After two very challenging years, I graduated from UC Berkeley in 2017 with a Bachelors in Molecular Environmental Biology and further studies in Comparative Ethnic Studies. Following graduation I participated in an NIH Global Health fellowship at the Ministry of Health in Managua, Nicaragua contributing to a dengue and Zika virus project under Drs. Eva Harris and Angel Balmaseda. This work had me spending many hours in a lab growing cells that were subsequently inoculated with Flaviviruses (dengue, Zika) with the goal of better understanding the molecular mechanisms of our immune system in response to infection. I also contributed to a needs assessment and epidemiological study of the impact of dengue and Zika infection on Managua visiting families in their homes throughout the city. After four awesome months in Nicaragua, I found myself back in Berkeley, summer stipend spent on med school applications, unable to afford the deposit on an apartment (thank you Sam for the loan). 

I continued work with the Harris Lab as a Lab Manager organizing large shipments of lab supplies and growing viral cultures. As my gap year went by and med school interviews ended, I relaxed for the first time in my young adult life, digging deep into scifi literature and falling deeply in love with watching movies in the theater. I also worked as a host, then server at a sorta swanky northern Italian Restaurant (Donato & Co).

After one gap year in the East Bay, I moved to New York City to attend medical school at Mount Sinai. New York brought the world to me and I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to spend four years in the greatest city in the world. In my extracurricular time, I found unique fulfillment learning about and contributing to alternative healthcare settings including clinics at drop-in shelters, mobile van clinics, and prisons. In this work I gained perspective on the ways healthcare providers can play a role bridging accessibility gaps and disrupting stigma. 

As a medical student during the covid-19 pandemic I was witness to an intensification of the traumas our healthcare system regularly inflicts on trainees and patients. A light in this darkness was the Institute of Family Health (IFH), a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in East Harlem where I experienced my third year Family Medicine rotation. For the first time, I found my people in medicine - family medicine comrades who shared a philosophy of judgement-free healthcare centered in community. On May 2022, supported my my loved ones, I walked the stage of Carnegie Hall and graduated medical school.

I'm now a Family Medicine residency at Santa Rosa Community Health. My personal flame varies in strength these days but I always carry gratitude for the journey that's brought me to this point and that which still awaits me. I find continued motivation in envisioning for myself a sustaining career that meshes clinical care, education, public policy, and music. I aim to pursue a fellowship in Substance Use Medicine and am particularly excited by current innovations in psychiatry.

I am an abortion provider, baby deliverer, HIV specialist and full-scope primary care provider committed to practicing medicine through a lens of unconditional harm reduction and patient empowerment. I recognize and seek to disrupt the innately harmful, racist, and misogynist aspects of our profit-centered healthcare system. I plan to bring my perspective and experience to local health advocacy and policy. 

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Besides doctoring, I find so much meaning and enjoyment exploring the creative world. I play music (marimba, hand drums, drum set, Taiko), I love to attend live music shows (electronic, rock, etc.), I love watching movies, reading fiction and non-fiction, eating delicious food, and meeting new people from all walks of life. I'm supported by an amazing partner, a large family, and network of loved ones to whom I owe everything and more.