Immigrant finds perfect match for his dreams

Stray bullets, grandpa told him, were less likely to hit you if you slept under the bed.

So he hunkered down under the straw mattress in the little house made out of mud and stone pieces and tried to sleep through another night of gunfire in El Salvador's civil war.

On the third Thursday in March, one of the biggest days in a senior medical student's life, Wilfredo Torres remembered where he came from.

Wearing scrubs as he stood inside a room at the University of Nevada School of Medicine filled with balloons and signs offering congratulations, the 28-year-old Torres said he always goes down memory lane when another dream comes true.

What he's already accomplished, he said, makes him push even harder, helps him realize that the biggest barrier to fulfillment is not dreaming big enough.

It is wonderful, he said, that the son of poor immigrants -- his mother works as a hotel maid and his dad works 16 hours a day at two casino kitchen helper jobs -- can enter one of the world's most honored professions.

"There is so much opportunity in the United States," Torres said. "It's sad if you don't take advantage of it. So many people around the world have no chance to do what they want."

On the day known as Match Day to medical students, Torres found out that his desired match was made. He gets to stay in his adopted hometown of Las Vegas for a four-year residency to train at University Medical Center in his chosen field of obstetrics and gynecology.

It's a long way from the war-ravaged country he escaped at the age of 7 to be with his parents in Southern California.

"I want to practice in Las Vegas," he said as classmates around him tore open Match Day letters that told them where they will train and work after medical school and even what kind of doctors they can become. "I want to give back to a place where teachers helped me realize what I could become."

Access to graduate medical training programs -- fields that include radiology, internal medicine, anesthesiology, surgery, pediatrics, psychiatry, and ophthalmology -- is a competitive process known as "the Match," an annual ritual steeped in tradition and suspense that begins when senior medical students apply to residency programs across the country.

Programs invite selected candidates for interviews. Then students submit a "rank-order list" to a centralized matching service while residency programs submit a list of their preferred applicants to the same service.

A computer combines the lists, theoretically creating optimal matches of residents to programs using an algorithm.

Although many students get what they want, others are matched to programs very low on their match list, far from friends and home. In some cases they may even have to choose entirely new specialties.

Unless they had acting talent worthy of an Oscar, none of the 54 medical students on hand for Match Day at Nevada's only public medical school Thursday received news they didn't relish. It's no wonder. Some were going to prestigious medical centers such as the Mayo Clinic or UCLA. There was laughter, tears of joy, slaps on the back, kisses from proud mothers, fathers, husbands and wives.

And for Torres, who on Thursday never strayed far from the love of his life, fellow medical student Shilpa Shahani, there were the memories that come rushing back when another of his goals is reached. It was what happened, he said, when he became the first member of his family to graduate from high school, then college.

And it happened again when he was admitted to medical school. In May, when he graduates, he knows he'll see his life in his mind's eye all over again.

When he looks back, he sees the frightened boy who was left with his grandfather in El Salvador during the 1980s while his parents tried to gain a foothold to a better life in the United States.

About 75,000 people died as a result of the civil war there between 1980 and 1992.

Most were simply civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"One of my uncles was arrested and beat up for two weeks before they let him go," Torres said. "Some people got killed with machetes. You heard gunfire a lot. It was pretty rough."

Once he came to Los Angeles to join his parents at the age of 7 -- his father had two jobs as a laborer -- Torres said he was far from comfortable.

"I couldn't speak any English and kids made fun of how small I was, how I dressed," he recalled.

Drive-by shootings in his poor L.A. neighborhood had him occasionally sleeping under the bed again.

He fought his antagonists with his fists, and he struggled in school as the English language got the best of him. But by middle school, the boy who had become an introvert started to succeed in school as his language skills improved.

When a friend died in a gang fight, he made up his mind to use his mind.

"I had come to an understanding that I had to use my head to get ahead," he said. "I wasn't afraid of working hard, because I saw how my father worked day in and day out."

In the mid-1990s, Wilfredo's parents, Jose and Sonia Torres, moved their family, which included another son and two daughters, to Las Vegas.

At Clark High School, Wilfredo Torres said science and math teachers helped him blossom.

"It's amazing how teachers can change your life," he said.

He worked part time at the Luxor, helping people get on rides. At 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 220 pounds, he played tackle on the football team.

His parents became citizens. So did he.

"There's an amazing spirit in this country," he said. "I know some people think we're going downhill, but I don't think the spirit has been lost. We just have to work harder."

A student who got solid A's and B's, he graduated from high school in 1999. Regularly working odd jobs through college that included delivering furniture and selling shoes, he graduated with an engineering degree from the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2005.

"For a long time, I thought I wanted to be a doctor so I could help people but I didn't know if I could do it," Torres said. "Teachers convinced me I could."

He met Shahani during medical school orientation. She also got her first choice on Match Day. She'll be training in pediatrics in a three-year residency at University Medical Center and Sunrise Hospital.

They say they'll be married soon, even though each has school loans to repay of more than $150,000.

As students whose study time often stretches into the 20-hour-a-day range, they also volunteer weekly to help teach high school science students at East Career & Technical Academy.

"I have to help turn around some of these kids," Torres said. "We can't give up on them. Too many of them dropping out of school. I want to give them the opportunity to see all the opportunities they have."

The couple looks forward to the 80-hour weeks they'll be working as residents for about $40,000 a year.

"This is our passion," Shahani said, laughing. "Besides, it's our first paid job as doctors."

"If my dad can work 16 hours a day in a kitchen, I can easily work 80 hours at something I love," Torres said.

They both realize the reputation of physicians in Southern Nevada has been tarnished by the hepatitis outbreak at local endoscopy clinics where staffers admitted to investigators that they were told to cut corners to save money.

"There's only one way we can get the confidence of the community," Torres said. "And that's by showing each patient how much we care about them. I can guarantee you Shilpa and I aren't doing this for the money. We want to help people."

Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal. com or 702-387-2908.