DFW News App

McALLEN — It’s been more than 10 years now since Roberto Solis, Roxana Mohhebali-Solis and Pompeyo Quesada met. They had begun their journey in medical school at Texas Tech’s School of Medicine in El Paso, and the trio could’ve never imagined their journey would lead them back home.

Pompeyo, 30, and Roberto, 32, met first as roommates during medical school and were often placed in the same groups as they went through each course.

During that time Roberto met Roxana, 34, and eventually got married and continued to pursue their passions together.

They each went on to continue their education in different parts of the country with Roberto in California, Pompeyo in Kansas and Roxana in Tennessee.

Roxana studied to become an OB-GYN and while Roberto and Pompeyo believed they would end up in different specialties they unexpectedly gravitated toward the same speciality — Pediatric Otolaryngology — or Ears, Nose and Throat specialists (ENTs).

This particular specialty is one Roberto described as rare for a medical student to choose; in fact, he explained that only about 350 people graduate a year with ENT as a specialty with about 30 of those doing pediatric ENT.

At the time both didn’t want to be surgeons, but as luck would have it that’s exactly what they were meant to do.

While Roberto had already found an interest in ENT due to the intricacies of the specialty, Pompeyo was still figuring out what he wanted to specialize in.

Pompeyo went on to do research training for a year at MD Anderson, where he had found an interest in oncology; however, he continued to do other training and eventually landed in ENT.

It was the detail and delicacy of the specialty that caught his eye.

Now the duo is bringing their ENT knowledge to the Rio Grande Valley and are establishing the area’s first dedicated pediatric ENT line at Driscoll Children’s Hospital Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg. Roxana will be helping lead DHR Health’s OB-GYN residency program.

BACK HOME

Although initially they hadn’t planned to return to the Valley, the three knew they wanted to work in a border town where they could help address healthcare needs in the area.

“I think being in El Paso it gave us an interest in coming back to a border town,” Roberto said.

Roxana, who is originally from Colombia, shared similar sentiments adding that, as an OB-GYN, one develops close relationships with their patients so she wanted to work in an area with a mostly Hispanic patient population so she could help address health disparities.

“For me it was definitely a no-brainer. I always knew that I wanted to come back to a community that was similar to El Paso,” Roxana said, adding that although she is not originally from the Valley she already feels at home.

Roberto laughed as he recalled how the idea to return to the Valley began. Something that happened almost on a whim.

One Christmas, Roberto and Roxana came down to the Valley to visit his family. As they drove down Edinburg they saw Driscoll Children’s Hospital being built right next to DHR Health Women’s Institute.

For the pair it was almost like fate was telling them to come home as they saw their specialties being connected by a sky bridge.

It was at that moment Roberto was motivated to reach out to Driscoll who recruited him to help develop the first pediatric ENT line in the area.

Roberto knew that to bring the subspecialty to the area he was going to need help from his best friend, Pompeyo.

“I still remember walking into UC Davis and being like ‘Hey, Pompeyo do you want to do this?’” Roberto said with a laugh.

Pompeyo shook his head as he laughed, adding that during that time he was speaking with the University of Kansas, Saint Luke’s Health System in Kansas City and other universities in the area to continue in the training program.

He recalled getting a call from Roberto about Driscoll thinking it was just another idea he was sharing.

“Maybe this is Roberto reaching out (about) another idea we randomly had over the last decade, and then it slowly started materializing a little bit more and then you (Roberto) visited,” Pompeyo said.

Now, nearly two years later, the duo will be officially opening their clinic, Pediatric Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery (ENT), next month on Sept. 16.

“I think it’s very special to treat your own people,” Roberto said with a smile.

Roberto and Pompeyo hope to bring high quality and comprehensive care that is on par with bigger cities in Texas.

They also hope to build a cochlear implant program for children that have severe hearing loss; a narrow digestive program in which they can provide airway reconstructive options; a thyroid program and cleft lip and palate surgery.

“It really doesn’t feel like a job, it feels like a calling,” Roberto said.

That’s not the only exciting part of the new job, however. Roberto and Pompeyo added that they are also looking forward to annoying Roxana whose office is conveniently located one floor from their offices.

“We can be very annoying together,” Pompeyo added jokingly.

Roxana, who has always been involved in academic medicine, joined DHR Health as an assistant program director of the OB-GYN Residency Program.

Pompeyo added that Roxana’s work as an assistant program director is something that most medical students don’t do until years after they’ve completed training for their career, so they couldn’t help but feel in awe of her.

“It’s a really big deal for all of us, because I mean we met each other when we felt that we were just even lucky to step into the door of a medical school,” Pompeyo said.

Roxana hopes to help boost education throughout the residency as well as help address the high rates of cervical cancer in the area.

In her role she will also be assisting in clinic, labor and delivery and gynecology surgery.

Although she began working at DHR Health last week, she’s excited to see where this journey will take her.

“It feels right, as soon as we got here, as soon as I started touring the hospital (and) meeting everyone, It just feels like home,” Roxana said. “It feels like a very special place and I don’t think I felt this way in many other hospitals that I worked at in the past.”

The post Valley’s newest ENTs, OB-GYN a circle of friends whose medical journeys aligned appeared first on MyRGV.com.