Since 2012 when she returned to San Diego after completing her medical education, Gwen Gleason-Rohrer, M.D., (03) has been serving the community in Mid-City San Diego as a physician and member of Mid-City Church of the Nazarene.
Gleason-Rohrer is a family physician and the medical director of San Diego Family Care (SDFC), a federally qualified health center in City Heights San Diego. She is responsible for providing quality medical care to a diverse, largely underserved and under-insured population.
Gleason-Rohrer is also the supervising physician at PLNU’s Health Promotion Center (HPC), which is located on the campus of Mid-City Church of the Nazarene. The HPC provides free, holistic, culturally sensitive care administered by faculty nurse practitioners as well as PLNU nursing and healthcare science students. The HPC’s community partnerships allow the clinic to offer specialty care that might not otherwise be accessible to its patients. In her role as supervising physician, Gleason-Rohrer provides input on complex cases, reviews the clinic’s protocols, and signs for supplies and treatments.
“I want students to know that this work is really important,” Gleason-Rohrer said. “I think the exposure is really key for students who maybe have a limited vision of what it means to be a nurse or a nurse practitioner or a doctor. I think it’s a great way to expand any student’s perspective of what healthcare should be and of the disparities in healthcare in this country.”
She also believes serving in the HPC can broaden students’ perspectives and increase their empathy for others.
“Being able to come in contact, come in relationship with, someone from a different background and a different experience provides wisdom to anybody, but especially students,” she said. “They’re at that critical time in their own development when it can really change their perspective on the world, theology, and their own vocation.”
Gleason-Rohrer speaks out of her own experience. As an undergraduate student at PLNU, she had planned to major in biochemistry as a premed student. Then, halfway through her junior year, she questioned whether that was really her calling. She switched her major to sociology and took on an internship with the Center for Justice & Reconciliation (CJR).
In addition to mentoring her in sociology, Dr. Jamie Gates, who was the CJR director at the time, connected Gleason-Rohrer with Dr. Margaret Stevenson, R.N., Ed.D., from PLNU’s School of Nursing. Stevenson and Dottie Crummy, R.N., Ph.D., had recently established the HPC with the help of a grant from the Helene Fuld Health Trust. Gleason-Rohrer recalls the early days involving “pop-up health clinics in the church fellowship hall.” The clinics offered health screenings, basic care, and health education.
“I remember there was a closet of health education material that I was trying to put some organization to,” she laughed.
Twenty-five years later, the HPC has its own clinic space and expanded services.
“The biggest impact I see from the HPC is their ability to provide no-cost healthcare to patients who really have no other resources and no other options.”
At the same time that she was interning with the CJR, volunteering with the HPC, and working on her degree, Gleason-Rohrer was also very involved at Mid-City Church of the Nazarene. She ran the children’s ministry and was a church board member. Mid-City is a multi-congregational, multi-lingual church, and Gleason-Rohrer also sat on the multi-congregational board.
After Gleason-Rohrer graduated, she felt a renewed call to medicine.
“Through experiences in mentorship and God’s calling, I found myself being called back to working in medicine with this new lens and awareness of health disparities and injustice,” she explained.
A year later, she began medical school at Loma Linda University. After earning her degree, she completed her family medicine residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. When she finished her residency, Gleason-Rohrer returned to San Diego in 2012. That’s when she began her current work with San Diego Family Care and the HPC.
Because the two clinics are just a few blocks apart and Gleason-Rohrer is involved with both, the SDFC and the HPC sometimes refer patients to each other. At her primary clinic, people often use Medicare or Medicaid or pay cash for services at a relatively low cost. However, for some people, even lower cost cash payments can be difficult to manage, especially if they have a chronic condition such as diabetes. People may also opt out of preventive care due to cost. That’s where being able to refer patients to the Health Promotion Center can make a big difference, Gleason-Rohrer explained.
“The biggest impact I see from the HPC is their ability to provide no-cost healthcare to patients who really have no other resources and no other options,” she said.
Although her work isn’t always easy, she knows it is a way she can serve God and others.
“For me, doing this kind of work is embodying God’s call on my life,” she said. “It’s living out a mission. It brings meaning to life. The work is hard and constantly pushes me to learn and grow, but it’s really a gift to be able to do work that serves a purpose beyond my own interests.”
When Gleason-Rohrer isn’t working, she can often be found with her husband, David, and three sons, Samuel, Simon, and Isaiah. She enjoys being involved with her church community. She also sings in PLNU’s Choral Union and looks for opportunities to enjoy nature.
