Jersey
Boy
words by Susan Glick / photograph by Pete Byron
Ricardo Perez, DO, JD,
UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine '04, Rutgers Law School, Camden '04
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icardo Perez, DO, JD, never expected to stay in New Jersey, but for better or worse, he’s a “Jersey boy.” Hailing from Perth Amboy, one of the state’s largest ports, he set his professional sites on distant goals but didn’t sail far from home to achieve them. Just three years after receiving his Doctor of Osteopathy (DO) degree from UMDNJ’s School of Osteopathic Medicine (SOM), he was invited to come back to this second home as an assistant professor of internal medicine. There’s no doubt that Perez is a trailblazer. His parents emigrated from the Dominican Republic in their teens, and he was the first in his immediate family to attend college. He was also the first in his family to become a physician and the first at his medical school to earn the joint DO/JD degree. Neither of his two younger siblings followed in his footsteps to medical school.
Studying law was not on his radar screen. However, he became somewhat disenchanted with medicine during his second year of medical school. He enjoyed the hands-on medical care, but had not anticipated the many faults of our current healthcare insurance industry. At that time he had the opportunity to represent SOM on the Federal Advisory Committee on Interdisciplinary, Community Based Linkages. This committee was created by Congress within the Health Resources and Services Administration to support and enhance interdisciplinary and community-based training of health professionals. With no intention of abandoning his first love, but wanting to pursue his new interest in law, he saw no reason why he couldn’t become both a DO and a JD.
Buoyed by his parents’ stringent work ethic, Perez surprised his mentor by jumping right in to take the LSAT (law school admission test) and applying to Rutgers Law School in Camden. He was able to successfully navigate his way through two demanding graduate programs and earned both degrees in six years, rather than the usual seven. His first two years in medical school were followed by two years of law school. He then attended both programs simultaneously to complete his studies, doing clinical rotations during the day and attending law school at night. He hastened his legal studies by completing courses over the summer – in Italy and Costa Rica. At the end of the sixth year, he received both degrees, although he had finished all law school requirements the previous year. He then completed a residency at Union Hospital-St. Barnabas Health Care System, although he has not yet taken the New Jersey Bar exam. His success in the dual program facilitated the passage of six other SOM students who followed in his footsteps.
Perez, who is a hospitalist, joined the SOM faculty to become co-coordinator of the medical jurisprudence course. From a professional standpoint, he has achieved a high level of success in a very short space of time. But from his parents’ perspective, 14 years of post high school education seemed like a very long time before entering the workforce. As he notes, “When I first discussed going to law school, my mother kept asking what I was doing with my life. When was I going to get a job? But she soon came around. I’m still teased that I chase my own ambulances.”
For Perez, having both degrees doesn’t change the way he practices medicine or approaches his patients and colleagues. It does, however, change the way he documents his care. “There are some legal issues that if I hadn’t studied law, I would not be as aware of. Medical litigation can call into question whether something is or isn’t documented in writing or how something is presented,” he says.
He likes the challenge of creating a legal argument, as well as that of treating a patient, particularly those who are hospitalized, because he “likes providing acute care.” He believes a physician facing a patient is held to a higher threshold of knowledge than an attorney facing a client. “Often, a physician has to respond immediately to a patient and doesn’t have time to research an answer,” he says.
The combined DO-JD degree provides professional flexibility in the near and far future. He describes his college and post-college education as an evolution without an endgame. Perez is on the threshold of building his career with that same open-mindedness and high energy expenditure.