Ives Orozco-Oporto

Meet Ives Orozco-Oporto

Ives Orozco-Oporto came to the United States seven years ago from his home country of Bolivia to pursue his dreams of higher education. After graduating from ministry school in Pennsylvania, he relocated to East Tennessee for work. It was here that Orozco-Oporto ultimately decided to pursue another degree, this time in a field of study that he had long been interested in – health care. In May, he will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in public health (and a double concentration in health care administration and community health). During his time as a student, Ives has been actively involved with developing the award-winning Project EARTH program at the ETSU/Eastman Valleybrook campus. He also served on the Educational Excellence Committee for the college, and was active in the Public Health Student Association. Orozco-Oporto and his wife, Gabriela, live in Johnson City. The couple recently adopted an 11-year-old girl, Sarah, from Ethiopia.

How did you end up at ETSU?

A lot of people suggested ETSU to me when I was looking to go back to school. I also looked online and the university really interested me because it has so many health professions programs. We have medicine, nursing, public health and so much more. It’s really a big health sciences center and there are a lot of resources here. The College of Public Health has given me an amazing experience. What I love the most is how the faculty and staff truly care about the students. They offer support and encouragement to reach our goals.

What are your goals? What do you want to do once you graduate?

I want to apply to positions here in this area and work in health care administration to gain more knowledge. I also want to continue my education. I will probably do my master’s and then continue on to do my doctoral degree in global health. I also want to establish a hospital in a rural area of Bolivia and partner with different universities in Bolivia to work at the clinic and provide care in that community.

Speaking of which, you recently organized a service trip to that part of Bolivia for yourself, two fellow students and a faculty member. Tell us more about that.

You have to travel through the mountains to get to this place. It’s a really remote village. My grandpa lived there and I went there to visit on vacations as a child. They don’t have access to care. It is so far to have to drive – six hours – to the city and you have to take a bus if you want to go there. The bus only comes twice a week, so if you are sick, you most likely won’t have access to health care.

The trip we took in December (2017) was to serve. We did diabetes screenings. We also went with a local physician from the area, so we made a triage plan where they went to the first place for vital checks, then another spot for sugar levels and after that, they’d see the physician. There were lines of people waiting to see the physician. They came from many other places. The farthest they came was from four hours away. If you think about it, that community is four hours from where we were, which is six hours from the city.  So they live 10 hours away from health care services. We were able to reach almost 100 people in one day, providing health care and also health education and doing hearing tests. 

What inspired you to help this community?

One of the reasons I wanted to do something is because I met a family there that had twins who were born at seven months’ gestation. They didn’t have the resources or access to the city for health care and check-ups. The children got an infection and they died. That really touched my heart and I said to myself, “This cannot happen. We have to fix this.” They need to have access to care.

What would you say is your philosophy on life?

My philosophy in life comes from love. You have to love. You have to love what you do. You have to love the people surrounding you. If you don’t love, you can’t care for anyone.