|
Mary Cruz, of Chula Vista, Ca. is community and multicultural manager at the Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center. Cruz's passion to work in the breast cancer field began over 20 years ago with the death of her best friend to the disease at the age of 35. She worked at the University of Southern California San Diego on the Por La Vida Project, a program that teaches breast health to Latinas through the use of a "peer education" model. She has been employed for more than 10 years at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, the closest hospital to the Mexican border in San Diego. Finding out that 50 percent of the facility's breast cancer patients were presenting with stage 3 or 4 levels of the disease and that 85 percent of the patients were Latinas, she has worked diligently and successfully to acquire grants to serve this disenfranchised population. | 