From a small village in Lanao del Sur to hospital corridors and medical classrooms in Florida, the journey of the physician known to family and friends as Dr. Sam has been guided by an enduring purpose: to use education and medicine in service of others.
Her story began in Lanao del Sur, where she spent her earliest school years before her family moved to Cagayan de Oro City because of her father’s work and his determination to give his children a strong education.
The family later settled in Iligan City, where Dr. Sam completed elementary school and attended high school at Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology. She graduated salutatorian, an early sign of the academic discipline that would define her professional life. In 2018, her high school recognized her as one of its accomplished alumni in the health sciences.
In 1985, she entered the University of the Philippines Diliman, earning a Bachelor of Science in biology, cum laude, and becoming active in the UP Honor Society.
Medicine soon became the natural next step.
She continued her studies at the University of the Philippines Manila, where she earned her medical degree. Even as a student, however, medicine for Dr. Sam was never confined to classrooms and hospitals.
She helped organize the Muslim Youth and Student Alliance, an organization devoted to community building, youth leadership and mentoring younger students. Members also participated in medical missions and other service initiatives.
That early experience established an idea that would remain with her throughout her career: A physician can do more than treat individual patients. Medicine can also strengthen entire communities.
After medical school, she returned to Marawi City to serve at the Mindanao State University Infirmary. There, she saw firsthand both the possibilities and limits of general community medicine.
She realized that while young physicians could provide essential primary care, specialized training would allow her to offer more.
That realization eventually brought her to the United States.
Dr. Sam was accepted into residency training at Nassau University Medical Center in New York, affiliated with the State University of New York system. During an already demanding period of medical training, she also became a mother to three children.
She completed specialty training in internal medicine and nephrology, developing expertise in diagnosing and treating kidney disease.
Eventually, she moved to Florida and joined a private medical practice, a decision that opened the next chapter of her career.
Building kidney care
In 2001, Dr. Sam took over the practice she had joined and founded Kidney Care of the Treasure Coast, where she serves as CEO and managing partner.
Under her leadership, the practice has expanded its services across the region. Its physicians serve patients at four locations, provide nephrology care in local hospitals and oversee dialysis care in facilities serving Fort Pierce, Port St. Lucie and Okeechobee. Kidney Care of the Treasure Coast is part of the National Kidney Partners network.
Her work has also expanded beyond her practice.
Together with more than 30 nephrologists, Dr. Sam helped form National Kidney Partners, where she serves on the board of directors.
She is also a co-owner of a dialysis company focused on expanding home dialysis, allowing qualified patients to receive treatment at home. Patients receive the training and supplies needed to manage their care with greater independence while living with chronic kidney disease.
For Dr. Sam, innovation in health care is ultimately about improving a patient’s quality of life.
Physician and teacher
Her work does not stop with clinical practice.
At the hospital, Dr. Sam serves on the credentialing committee and the pharmacy and therapeutics committee while also serving as chief of nephrology.
When a local hospital established a residency program, she was recruited as an associate program director. She now serves as core faculty in nephrology, teaching young physicians through lectures and direct patient care.
She encourages residents not only to become stronger clinicians but also to participate in research and scholarly work, contributing to medical publications along the way.
Dr. Sam also teaches at Florida State University’s Fort Pierce campus, where medical students receive community-based, hands-on exposure to patient care. Her professional profile identifies her as an associate professor at Florida State University College of Medicine and an assistant program director with HCA Healthcare in Fort Pierce.
Mentorship remains especially close to her heart. Students interested in medicine are welcomed to shadow her, giving aspiring physicians an opportunity to see the realities of the profession before committing themselves to the demanding path of medical education.
It echoes what Dr. Sam has done since her student days: opening doors for the generation behind her.
Never forgetting home
Despite building a successful medical career in the United States, Dr. Sam has never severed her connection with the Philippines.
She has returned frequently over the years to serve communities, particularly in remote areas of Mindanao.
Through the Philippine American Association of the Treasure Coast, where she previously served as president and now serves on the board of directors, she has helped organize medical missions to underserved villages in the Philippines. The organization has also led fundraising efforts for communities affected by natural disasters.
Its work reaches both sides of the Pacific.
In Florida, the association established a scholarship endowment fund for students attending Indian River State College, helping make higher education more accessible to young people in the local community.
Its annual cultural ball showcases Filipino dances, traditions and heritage—not simply as entertainment, but as a way to pass Filipino culture to younger generations and share it with the wider American community.
Dr. Sam also served as president of the Philippine American Medical Association of the Treasure Coast. During her tenure, the organization developed continuing medical education activities for physicians while strengthening its participation in medical missions to the Philippines.
Her connection to Mindanao also extends beyond medicine.
Dr. Sam serves on the board of directors of Kinding Sindaw, a New York City-based cultural collective dedicated to preserving and promoting the traditions, stories, music, dance and cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples from the southern Philippines.
Through Kinding Sindaw, she has worked alongside Potri Ranka Manis, whose cultural advocacy has brought the traditions and narratives of Mindanao’s Indigenous communities to audiences in New York and beyond.
For Dr. Sam, this work reflects another dimension of service: ensuring that the histories and identities of communities in the southern Philippines are not only remembered, but also shared proudly with future generations.
Her commitment to education also includes a cause close to her family. In the Philippines, she serves as an adviser to a school for children with autism that was co-founded by her sister.
Whether in a hospital, university classroom, rural Philippine community, cultural organization in New York or association meeting in Florida, the pattern remains the same: medicine, education, culture and service continually intersect.
A life beyond medicine
For all the responsibilities attached to being a physician, educator, executive and community leader, Dr. Sam values the quieter parts of life.
She spends free time with her husband, tending to their chickens, which provide the family with fresh eggs, and enjoying the company of their two cats. Whenever possible, she travels to visit her children, who now live in different parts of the United States.
It is a simple counterpoint to an extraordinary professional journey.
From Lanao del Sur to Iligan, from the University of the Philippines to New York and eventually Florida, Dr. Sam has built a career that reaches far beyond treating kidney disease.
She has educated future physicians, mentored students, helped build health care institutions, promoted Filipino and Indigenous cultural heritage, supported scholarships and repeatedly returned to communities that might otherwise struggle to obtain medical care.
Her story is ultimately not only about how far education can take a person. It is about what a person chooses to do once given the opportunity.
For Dr. Sam, success has meant bringing the knowledge, opportunities and resources she gained along the way back to the communities and people who need them most, while helping ensure that the culture and stories of the place where her journey began continue to be seen, heard and remembered.
