Marvin Albert Meza Jarquín, M.D., was told he had an interesting American success story, but he was slightly reluctant to do an interview — at first. He considers himself to be somewhat quiet, he said.
His partner, his sister, and his mom, however, all pointed out to him that there are a lot of kids from Sampson County who would probably see themselves in him, who want to see that there’s a path, that it’s possible for people who live in rural, low-income communities to achieve their dreams and make a difference as they believe he has done.
He thought about their points for a while and decided, “You know what, I owe it to them,” and so he said yes.
Jarquín moved to America when he was 16.
“My journey starts in Nicaragua in Central America,” he began. ”I’m an immigrant.”
“I have a joke about that,” he added.
“I worked at the Hardee’s in Roseboro in high school. When I moved here, I didn’t speak any English whatsoever, and so what little I spoke within the few months of living here was heavily accented…
“There was this girl working the grill with me, and she said, ‘Oh, where’s your accent from?’ I said, ‘Oh, it’s from Nicaragua,’ and she goes, ‘Where’s that?’
“I said ‘Oh, Central America,’ and she says, ‘So, near Kansas…?’”
He didn’t realize it at the time, but, he said now, she was being sarcastic.
“I didn’t speak English so well, so I didn’t pick up on the sarcasm because there was a language barrier.”
Jarquín attended Lakewood High School, followed by Sampson Community College, and then went on to UNC Chapel Hill for medical school. He recently graduated and has returned to Sampson to further pursue his studies.
He’s working and studying now at Sampson Regional Medical Center, where he’ll be doing a lot of hands-on work.
His set of skills include working in sports medicine and delivering babies.
He explained the journey that inspired him to become a doctor.
“I liked school as a kid,” he explained.
“As a kid, I didn’t know this, but I was very vocal about what I wanted…not in a way that I was trying to get attention, but rather, ‘Hey, there’s this thing that I really care about. How can we make that happen?
“There are a few people from Lakewood High, for example, who were instrumental in my journey. One of them, her name is Mrs. West, and she had a lot of faith in me. She saw something in me, whether I talked too much, or, maybe, that I had a fascination with human physiology and anatomy.
“She saw that journey from me not even being able to express the simplest of sentences to just expanding on whatever topic it was within a few months. She saw something in me then, and she always has continued to fan the flame that I had, I guess, within me.”
He remembered another teacher who had a lot of faith in him, Ms. Eavenson, at Sampson Community College.
“I say this with love, but she probably got tired of how many ideas I brought to her.”
She never told him no, though.
“At undergrad…my favorite classes were in the sciences. I liked the faculty, I liked the work… I like how they continue to advance humanity, to push the boundaries of what we can do with the knowledge that we have, and that was always there…but then, I was like, I need the human touch, too. That human connection.
“I needed more than just hard sciences, but I was also on the fence, especially because medicine is a very expensive career to pursue, and it felt inaccessible.”
But medicine seemed like his path. Jarquinn said he had seen a lot of what he called injustice and disparities in people from Sampson County regardless of their skin color. “…just the jarring disparities in wealth that we see day-to-day, and it’s really upsetting…when I applied to medical school, something like 18 counties didn’t have OB-GYN’s.”
Lack of that type of care is an issue that Sampson County continues to struggle with as well, he noted.
“It’s jarring, and it’s heartbreaking, and I thought to myself, ‘Man, I wish I could do more to rectify this problem that’s so pervasive.’”
He explained how being an immigrant affected his upbringing, access to education, access to healthcare, etc.
“I didn’t have a pediatrician. I didn’t have a dentist until I went to UNC, frankly, then I had access to health insurance.”
For all those reasons and many others, he said he wants to do as much as he can to help provide the care for others that wasn’t always available to him.
“I wanted to feel like I was doing something, you know?
“I don’t want to give the impression that I have this hero complex, because one single person or doctor is not going to correct any problem, but damn,” he exclaimed, “we can try…we’re aware that we’re not gonna fix everything, but if we can make a small change in a small community, that’s a victory we’ll take.”
Jarquín graduated from medical school this past May, and is now training in his specialty, which will eventually be radiology.
He wasn’t sure at first what he wanted to focus on. Multiple specialties interested him.
“A lot of internal medicine is really broad,” he explained.
“In the end, I picked something that feels a little bit in touch with all of the specialties. Radiologists are called a doctor’s doctor, because they get consulted by everybody, really.
“You have to have a wealth of knowledge for all those specialties, too, and that’s exciting. I’m never going to be bored.”
He said he really wanted — and hoped — to get back to the Clinton area; Sampson Regional was his top choice.
“I know the town, I know all the eating spots, I know other people here…I like how tight-knit the community is, and how warm it feels.I care deeply about Sampson County. I’m a native. I wasn’t born here, but I feel very attached to it.”
In his new role as doctor, he is able to provide care in both English and Spanish. While he was at UNC, everything he learned in English, he also learned in Spanish to better help his patients.
“There’s a lot that is lost in interpretation,” he pointed out. “The human warmth, the human touch, tone, emotion…and so I can bring that to every interaction with every patient, in Spanish or in English, and that’s literally priceless.”
He reflected on what his family had told him about kids in Sampson County who might see themselves in him, who have dreams but struggle.
“Be vocal about your dreams, be vocal about asking for help, and then when that help is offered, whether you ask for it or not, take it…it’s OK to ask for help. It’s OK to say you’re struggling.
“Early on…the way we’re socialized, we’re either directly or indirectly…consciously or subconsciously, we’re told — or we assume — that we need to keep quiet, that we need to just be stoic through suffering and pain, and we keep a lot of that to ourselves.
“So, I’m saying to any young kid, or even an older person…be vocal about anything that inspires you, that wakes you up excited, and if you need help to get to what that is, to reach out to people. You’d be surprised how many are willing to offer you a helping hand.”
He added one more piece of advice from his experiences.
“There will be people who say — either explicitly or not — that you cannot make it, that you’re not cut out for that one dream that you have…yeah, you can use that also as inspiration. It feels really good to prove them wrong.”