 episode of In the Studio. My guest today is an amazing doctor, Oscar Vasquez, is a neuroscientist. He holds a doctorate from UC Berkeley. After eight years of decorated service in the United States Marines, which included a combat tour in Iraq, where he was decorated for his outstanding leadership and commitment and contributions to his team, he is now involved in a clinic at the UC Davis Medical School. He represents to me the new generation of veterans as his research and his work is actually now tied to his experiences as Marines and UC Davis work and studies. Welcome Dr. Vasquez. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for such a nice introduction. You have such an outstanding bio. It was a little very difficult to summarize it somehow and please correct me if I've made any mistakes. You were born in Puerto Rico. That's correct. And your experiences and aspirations tell me what were they? What were they that have led you to the scientists, researchers, human beings you are now? It all started with having the opportunity to grow up in a family that despite financial difficulties that we experienced, we were very rich in the type of experiences that our parents gave us. My dad used to work at a zoo, so that meant that I had continuous access to the zoo and I took advantage of that. I started visiting the zoo as much as I could and I fell in love with biology and eventually as I grew up in my interest to develop, I started getting really interested in the biology of disease because I started volunteering to help the veterinary staff at the zoo. And while learning about how disease presents itself, how can you investigate what's the best approach to take it, I developed this curiosity of how can we use science to actually solve questions that are very clinical in nature. Creativity and curiosity. Curiosity, yes. Which is wonderful. Now what, and by the way, I understand your girlfriend is in the veterinary school. That's correct, that's correct. So she's so, yeah exactly. So she represents your first love, I suppose. Yeah, in great part. Actually, I always thought, although the way until I went to college that I was myself was going to become a veterinarian. But then when I realized how hard it was to get into veterinary school, particularly here at UC Davis. UC Davis, the first one in the world. Exactly. I was like, well, let me just do something easier and go for neurosurgery because that's going to be really hard to get. What led you to enroll in the United States Marines? By the time that I was finishing high school in Puerto Rico, I knew then that one of the ways that I could actually do that thing that I have following love, which is using creativity to solve clinical problems, I knew that I wanted to go to college. But I also knew that my parents were not going to be able to afford college for me and all my sisters. I had two other sisters that also work here years and also wanted to go to school. So I started thinking about how can I do this? How can I actually still achieve my goals while not depending on my parents for this? And luckily for me, I grew up in a family that was also very rich in military history and veterans. I have a lot of variance in my family. And at the same time as I was interested in medicine and in science, I also had a deep desire to serve because I saw that as a way that I could give back to the community that had actually let me make choices like where do I go to school and why do I get to study? I thought that I was very fortunate by that and I wanted to give back by joining the service. So I found a way that I can combine both of those and I joined the Marines with the intention of coming back to Puerto Rico and actually starting my undergraduate studies at the University of Puerto Rico. So I did both at the same time. At the same time as I enroll at the University of Puerto Rico, I also enlisted in the Marines. And that was very useful in terms of economics and also practical experience. In terms of medical training, I understand they do a very thorough job. If you want to learn more about the medical sciences, is that correct? So being a good biology student at the University of Puerto Rico made me a good Marine and being a good Marine made me a good biology student because from the Marine Corps I also got the discipline to actually apply myself to what I was studying. I had the nature, the second nature of doing things in a very regimented approach that will always lead me to either succeed at first or find a way to think about how can I actually make things better the second time. That sounds wonderful. What was the most difficult adjustment that you had to make to be in the Marine Corps, in particular with respect to the combat tour in Iraq? I think that the hardest adjustment that I had to do was that I went to Iraq when I was just 21, but I happened to find myself in a very fortunate position that I deployed with a unit that was completely staffed by very professional Marines. I was at the right time at the right place in the history of the Marine Corps where I was able to join a unit that was making history. It was the first unit of Marines that was joining the United States Special Operations Command. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time when they recruited me, but everyone else who was in that unit had been handpicked to join the unit. So for me there was a very steep learning curve as they say because here I was operating side by side with individuals that had been working for average of 15 years in the Marines. The average age was 30 and I was 21. The average rank was at least three pay grades higher than mine. Was it physically very taxing? Yeah, it was physically taxing. It was mentally taxing and it required a level of maturity that I feel that if it wasn't because I had chosen that combined path of going to college and doing military service, I wouldn't have been ready to do that. How were the conditions in Iraq? Did you actually see action? Yeah, the unit we deployed to a part of Iraq that was very busy at the time. We were in Baghdad and it was very busy in the sense that we were operating constantly but the enemy also gets to have their choice. So they were operating on us and I remember the first time that we landed in Iraq they welcomed us to the base with a repertoire of mortar rounds and rocket attack to the base that we were just settling in. So it was a stressful time. Frightening perhaps? Yeah, exactly. Very frightening actually. Yes, but it gave you all the experience. I understand that I have so many questions I want to ask you. Your studies have focused and are focusing on the brain and particularly the mental wounds of war. Wounds such as PTSD, post-traumatic stress syndrome or TBI, traumatic brain injury. Why? Well, it all started with my desire to work on traumatic brain injuries. While I was in Iraq, I unfortunately was exposed for a sound of what are the consequences of traumatic brain injuries. One of our members in the unit suffered some wounds from a blast injury and as in the combination of injuries that he suffered, there was a traumatic brain injury involved and I learned there that we had very good ways to treat almost any other sort of trauma that our warfighters would be exposed to while deployed but we didn't have a lot of tools to help them with the traumatic brain injuries and that made me again curious about how can we use science to solve that and slowly or surely I started doing what almost everyone would do. I went to the internet and started researching and without knowing I was becoming a neuroscientist and so then when I left the Marines I decided that this was my niche. I needed to go find a way to help my friend and the many other hundreds and thousands of servicemen and women who had suffered that kind of injury since we started the conflict in the Middle East. While you were talking I was thinking that we need to have a follow-up because I'd like to know so much more about what you're studying and what the symptoms and consequencing especially of TBI are focusing I know you've been focusing on epilepsy but we don't have time to do that so I do want to say please google Dr. Vasquez and find out all the things he's been studying and it's really outstanding and the study of the brain as you know is the future. Now you're very committed in another area namely you are committed to resolving some of the inequities that you have observed in areas such for example as OBGYN or the role of doulas and doulas are sort of midwives that help and understand sometimes empirically all the effects and challenges of birth for women so have you observed that we're making progress in that field or are there still you know discrimination? Not at the speed that I would like to certainly but but they are so initiatives as a matter of fact the reason why I became interested in that field was because while at Berkeley I happened to have the great opportunity of meeting leaders in their respective fields of how they're changing the face of medicine or how they're changing and solving problems in medicine and one of them is a she's a leader in global health initiatives and she saw the benefit of how doulas could actually help our women go through the experience of not only birth but even before birth prenatal care and postnatal care and and she happens to be a native of California and as a matter of fact she is now offering what it will be one of the first initiatives to get doula care for mothers all throughout California covered by Medicare. Oh that's wonderful so there is progress there. Yeah so there's a lot of individuals that are working together and trying to bring that peace that may or may not be at everyone's bedside when they could use it and in a place in a situation now where we have social shortage of OBGYNs it is the right time. Any person who can come and help would be welcome especially people like midwives and doulas were especially trained to assist. I'm sure you I imagine you've been in contact with the Irene the Betty Moore school of nurses here. Yes yeah again there is so much to learn from all the things you do but there's a couple of other things that I wanted to ask you. More philosophical in nature. The late John McCain once said wars are wretched beyond description. Are they? I have to agree with that a hundred percent and you know Senator McCain my heart goes to the family is one of those individuals that serve as an inspiration so many things that he did for a country and and and his perspective on war is such an insider's view of what actually combat is that he he used the right words to describe it. And it does change men. Certainly. We've seen you in a way being even more committing to healing the what I call the wound the mental wounds hidden wounds of war and also the physical of course. One last question Dr. Vaskas. Yes please go ahead. Fifteen minutes go very very fast. I know. What does veterans day mean to you? For me veterans days have been since I joined the Marines a time to slow down and think of how fortunate I have been to work side by side with the individuals that I serve with and how fortunate am I to be back and get to spend it with my family my loved ones. Certainly not all the veterans make it back and I feel very fortunate of being one of the ones that made it back and and to have to actually had that experience thanks to the guys that were next to me. The guys to my left and the guys to my right where the ones who brought me here so I do that. It's wonderful. I'm afraid we're out of time. Thank you so much Dr. Oscar Vaskas for being here. You are an amazing role model and I thank you for that and from all of us here at Davis Media Access thank you for watching and see you next time.