Compassionate care has a way of changing everyone it touches, including the people who give it. Angélica González came to WCRC as a volunteer hoping to support her community. What she found along the way reshaped how she understands healthcare and where she wants to go next. As part of our All-In campaign this October, we’re honored to share her story.
Angélica’s connection to this work began at home. When her mom was diagnosed with cancer, Angélica watched her fall through the cracks of a system that wasn’t built with immigrant families like hers in mind. She grew up frustrated with the medical field, a feeling that would later turn into a drive to change how people experience it.
In 2020, during the pandemic, she found a volunteer role at WCRC. She worked on financial assistance, made emotional support and check in calls, and as one of the few Spanish speaking volunteers at the time, handled many intake calls. Looking back, she describes that time as “just barely hitting the surface” of what WCRC offers. Now that she works directly with clients as a patient navigator, she sees how far that first layer of support reaches. The check in calls she once made as a volunteer are often where a client’s journey with WCRC begins, and she now gets to see how much those calls mean to the people on the other end.
Her work today takes her to doctors’ offices, into conversations with providers and social workers, and through the process of helping clients apply for state disability support. She describes navigation as being a bridge between clients and the systems they rely on, where a single check-in call can set off a chain of support once a client’s needs are understood.
Angélica studied biology at UC Berkeley, where her public health coursework first showed her that health is shaped by many social factors. Navigation has made that real. She reflects that when clients struggle to get what they need, it often points to gaps in the system rather than anything they’ve done wrong. “This work has been incredibly fulfilling,” she says.
It has also changed her direction. Angélica once pictured herself in a medical specialty. Now she is drawn to primary care and preventive medicine, where she hopes to be the first person a patient sees. As a Spanish speaker and a person of color, she believes that if someone feels safe walking through the door, everything that follows becomes more possible.
We’re grateful to have Angélica on our Navigation team, and we’ll be sharing more stories throughout October.