Since he can remember, Jorge Cruz has always wanted to get involved with matters related to health and community service.
“I was always interested in working in a hospital or a clinic, where patients or the community were helped”, she said.
This interest took a more personal turn when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. At that time, the lady was not even years old.
“I learned what goes through a patient’s head,” he said. “The difficulties of working, going to their treatments, visiting the doctor, supporting a family.”
This experience reaffirmed Cruz’s desire to focus his life and career in the health sector, specifically in the area of oncology.
Currently, he is Assistant Vice President of Financial Strategies for Northwell Health Cancer Institute, a New York-based nonprofit integrated health system. The medical institute brings together more than a dozen hospitals and one more will open in the near future in Queens to serve anyone with cancer.
Cruz was a brilliant student, so he had no trouble getting scholarships when it came time to go to college. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from New York University and went on to earn a master’s degree in public health from Yale University.
He was also a fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital & Health System and assistant to teacher at Yale University medical school.
But Cruz wanted to return to New York, where he had grown up.
“I wanted to help the community I knew”, he said.
And for He has been part of Northwell Health Cancer Institute for thirteen years, where he is in charge of strategies to attract clients and where he is also responsible for a hospital in Queens where services of gynecologists and oncologists are offered, as well as chemotherapy treatments for cancer patients.
Cruz is, of course, the great pride of his mother, an immigrant from El Salvador who raised him alone while managing several jobs at the same time.
The lady overcame cancer She is pregnant and now lives with her son, who works long hours a day.
“I work a lot, but it doesn’t matter because it’s for something good”, she said.