Carlos Gonzales, MD: A Healer in Spirit

When events at the University of Arizona Health Sciences begin, Carlos Gonzales, MD, a University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson associate professor of family and community medicine, can often be seen with an abalone shell filled with smoking sage and cedar to offer a ceremonial Native American blessing.

That's only one of many hats he wears at the college, including assistant dean for curricular affairs, committee chair of the Primary Care Physician Scholarship program, and director of the Rural Health Professions Program (RHPP) and Commitment to Underserved Peoples (CUP) volunteer program. The last two roles make him head of the college's Rural Health and Community Service Distinction Tracks, as well.

A Tucson native of Mexican and Yaqui descent, he's also a hereditary link to a line of healers whose roots reach back to the 1840s and earlier, to a time before Arizona was part of the United States.