E05 - Dr. Rene Bravo: Pivotal Moments

Dr. Bravo shares about pivotal moments in his faith, his battle with childhood cancer which led him to become a doctor, and how the prerequisite for being used by God is being willing to be used by God. 

TRANSCRIPTION:

How you doing today I'm good off chores are primarily catch up on things have been neglected around the house and you know and I do a little bit of happy stuff and I go exercise and make phone calls with people that I should have called earlier the week and didn't pick it up thanks for thanks for being willing to chat I really appreciate it. My wife said you should you should ask dr. Bravo if you'd be willing to be on the podcast and I said no no no he's he's he he's too big he's too famous took me a couple weeks to build up the courage but then I finally did and you know so my wife also demanded that I get a few facts straight right from the get-go we met you the day after our son was born which was 13 years ago when you were instantly one of my wife's favorite people on the planet shirt that has a quote from you that says you can do it Dr Bravo that she wears numbers are numbers are you saying on multiple occasions that she's one of your favorite moms that you have messy in your practice so the world wants to know doctor be true or false what is the truth about your wife is she really does make me laugh she's bunnies you she is so funny I love that is she she is and I'm glad to hear that despite the fact that I think she cries literally every time she walks into your office and see if it's okay so snow new we've always known you as dr. Bravo but Rene Bravo wasn't always Dr Bravo for me that I am really really curious about let's start where did you where did you grow up I was born in Florida and Miami Florida lived in a little part of Florida they call Little Havana and I spent the first three years of or four years of my life there until my parents got the correct and clean that they needed to move out of Florida to California back in the early 1960s late 1950s on a California was the Golden State and people work work work work flocking to California and Dro they were in their late 20s trying to build a life understanding that that the climate in the end the temperature in Florida what's this good is California to keep hearing from their relatives come out to California to nice place to live and so I'm very glad that they that they made the Trek across the country what what was the impetus besides just being California what did what were your parents doing for work and my father is Ecuador in Miami married and raise a family at least started a family there really was just to get work my dad was a laborer and he he he was eat that that man work is entire life extremely hard and and so he figured that it was a lot that there's a lot of work in California that's what he came for he eventually became a welder and in my mom was just my mom she work for the Airlines and did a lot of clerical work and wonderful people recently they three and a half before and then we move to Bell FL actually all of my memories that are a formative are in the Los Angeles area I grew up in Belle and Cudahy Huntington Park area which is known as South East Los Angeles County not a place that I would probably walk around in now but that said it wasn't as rough as it is now but it was some people would call it the inner city I just called it home and and I grew up there went to high school and those are the years of my life and what was your life like in those years how how many siblings did you have in and what what were you doing during this time I have a brother who is the brother and I have a sister my brother is a disabled family physician and my sister was educated as a school teacher but she's been asked Jesus been a stay-at-home mom for all these years I don't say just cuz he works pretty hard and so I was the oldest of three and I grew up in that part of Los Angeles during winter Unified Schools what's the product of that environment in and really it was I still go back and dance and look at the area and realize that to all the people from the outside will see things that are maybe a little bit dark I thought it was a great place to grow up and and I had a great childhood because of my parents so you end up after high school and they were skipping forward a few years but you not going to Point Loma Nazarene University by their well that's it that's it that's a good question I can give you the the The Point Loma answer I'm going to Board of Trustees there now but I'll give you the real answer the real answer is this what I graduated from high school was grabbed by senior year I was an okay student that wasn't the great student but but I came from my part of LA county that a lot of the people felt needed to be socially engineered so they were bringing kids out of the inner city and giving them opportunities so I was going to USC USC Trojan I had this near USC and in love USC football but one day might my pastor came to me and said he got to check out this little Christian College in San Diego, I remember thinking well I'll check it out so my friend and I we drove to San Diego that day I remember the day very well I was 17 drove up the drive crested the hill and went through the guard shack in front of us was the expanse of the Pacific Ocean what are the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen and then the second thing we saw a group of ladies dressed very very immodestly I would say and I said what is happening here and so between the Allure of the of the of the view and the other possibilities that tugged on a seventeen-year-old plus the fact that I went and I want to walk into one of the and immediately what are the professors reached out to me grab my hands with me in his office and asked me about myself and and I said man this place they really like they really want you to come here and so I went home and USC doctor so my mother talked my dad into it and and I went to a Point Loma the rest is history so focused on you being a doctor he really wasn't. That was my ambition in my dream like I would think so an end but anyhow it was a good decision because that's where I met my wife and had I had a gun at USC I'm not sure what would have happened to Christian home now. How about your faith growing up was it was it your parents Faith did you did you relate to Jesus on a personal level at that point or did that come later it came later Christian home what it was was something that I took for granted and do what I say Christian home I mean it we were not that the family that did nightly devotionals and and all of the things you're supposed to do and frankly were the family that work really hard trying to get by and and just make and the faith that we had was really brought in by my dad and my mom because they both believe very strongly that that the Believers were the types of people we wanted to hang around with I got cancer when I was fourteen which really shaped my worldview quite a bit also fueled my desire to become a physician but in the home that we grew up and during that time and high school going to church I was involved in the youth-group but really something that didn't become mine till I went to college cuz I I learned and I'll just be very transparent about this cuz I know kids struggle with this is very easy to be true people one person at school and another person at church and I had good pastors good youth pastors Etc but I never really understood what it meant to be fully devoted to Jesus until I went to college high school taught me about what were the rules were about college taught me about what it is to have it in your heart and that was the big difference I knew the rules I knew that the ology I knew everything going in in fact I would tell you that my salvation experience never happened at church it happened on a school bus football games in high school and I'll never forget that experience if I can share that with you because I didn't have a little part of my testimony I was I was I was always you know I was a smart kid and I thought I thought I had a fairly High self-esteem in terms of how kids are then and in that and I thought I was pretty smart I could pull off you know being the cool kid at school and being the Church of kid at church that used to hang around with us and and my friends were of mixed belief systems labor that way but one day they started taunting the Christian kid and a rollback of me and they were calling him names called him Jesus Freak and and everything else and I don't know what started it but it was pretty vicious and and I was sitting there quietly remembering thinking man this is really bad why are they making fun of it like that you know and then well are you a Jesus freak you know are you going to stand up and say something are you just going to sit there and let them make fun of him and it it became I said to myself that I was included in their in their taunting in their division is it going to be standing up for the Lord and it doesn't sound like a big deal and I remember looking at that my friend who is being just brutalized because he was a Believer and you look me in the eyes and say anything I knew what he was thinking and then I just stood up and said well if you want to make fun of him make fun of me too because I'm a Jesus Freak and and and I stand with him that was the moment that I am in my heart that that there were things more important than being cool something that you had to have interesting after that subdued my own ego and and let the Lord lead they stopped actually is interested. Is that like whoa whoa you know I keep my mouth shut and not and not engage with that but that was the moment that I felt that my salvation was real and it was starting to become mine because it wasn't it wasn't any youth group but it wasn't the time that everybody runs up to summer camp to the altar it was that time when you said man okay I stand up I stand with you no matter what the consequences was the date that I Mark that it was on a game buster to Gardena High School bunch of guys in there going to remember if we won or lost the game but I do remember the next day that something was different about me. Thanks for sharing that it's amazing and then you said that in college it sort of I guess even more mature than your face what was it about that college experience that kind of took your face to the next to a small Christian College everybody that goes there is a chest perfect Christian and that is the opposite of what really is a Christian colleges can be very challenging to you and I went in there with a preconceived notion and and part of our education and I remember his class having a professors who would tear down and all of your arguments and who would argue back with you about things you believe and at some point I just threw my hands up and it said what do I re I remember the second part of of of my consecration to the Lord was it was a Friday night and I was taking this class and and I really wanted to know more deeper what was going on and so I really didn't want to go to church or belong to any religion because it was culturally part of my existence I wanted it to be real I wanted to be mine imaginary friends that everybody praise too and believes does magic tricks for them I wanted to have a relationship with the Living God that was solid and that I could press for the rest of my life and by myself again. Church.. And not at the sanctuary in my car I went by myself down to Shelter Island every Friday night we had a date and I didn't have a date. You know just reading it and just getting this overwhelming feeling that the Lord was real that that this whole Adventure was really not invite you in but his doing and I really just said again to the Lord I consecrate myself to you whatever you want I want I want to be yours and that was another moment where there was something that Supernatural that came over me whether it's a feeling or emotion weather was cognitive I don't know but something happened and being a man of science and I will tell you this you know I'm not one of these kind of crazy magic tricks from the Lord type of guy just to see things you knowing I won't go into the signs and wonders movement but but some of that I'm not a Mystic so to speak but I did feel something very different that is sustained mean out for the rest of my life and and I'll tell you what after going through this adventure called medicine and helping people and watching people coming to the I've realized that we are a lot more than what the world tells us we are we are more than bags of chemicals in organic reactions we are we are we are we are spirit and there is a deeper Dimension to humans the intersection of your face and your work because I think so often for many Christians we think of those things is mutually exclusive I know you don't but let's go back to high school without just stating the obvious you mentioned that you it had cancer as a child and that kind of prompted you to pursue medicine but why did it do that when was something that I didn't Envision early on in my life and it wasn't until the earthquake of 1971 that was that was a kid and I ran out of the house is about 6 a.m. in the morning there's a there's a point to this I'm going to get you in the second year I remember thinking cuz that was a terrible earthquake thinking that the house is going to collapse and I remember as I left I ran out the house and let my family and then I said okay everyone for himself but when I fell down and hurt my leg my parents took me to the to the hospital I was one of the injuries of that earthquake incidentally the statistics so I went to the hospital and Anna didn't break anything but I really free stuff but while I was there the doctor noticed it was 13 I don't know bother me with questions I'm not interested in interacting with you right now person with the white coat on just do what you need to do and then go back to my wife so the next day they sent me to the 2 to the orthopedic hospital and that was that was at the Children's Hospital removed it and then I'm sure I know what they told my parents but I remember something happened because suddenly my parents are very solemn and that's kind of weird from church is it what's up with this so the past has brought me down you have cancer okay that's nice will fix it and get on with life I really was not affected at first but yet and then my mom started crying and my dad I said when he's with these guys really you know because I was fairly sure but the other doctors and then they did other things they are doing tests and Bone marrow's radiation therapy after surgery and all that stuff and all these kids to disappear what only one left it didn't strike me until my 14th year of life you know especially this was a young girl who was about 13 she's pretty cute that will crush on her back McDonald on me how serious this was and then shortly after that I said what I was talking to some of the doctors I think I can do this I had to find a reason for this why I was the one that was living and no one else seemed to be living through this and that was right deserve to be doctor and they gave me a couple of additions there at the city of hope they told me that I would never have children that was one of the things they were very sure about myself wow that's great I was thinking what a bonus if so anyhow and then I went to college well the things that I was going through exploring my own Christianity myself eischen the reality of Life the fact that God had a real plan I mean before The Purpose Driven Life I was already right in my head and I remember none of that really mattered until I met my future wife the first thing that the first date we had she said the discussion that we had years years earlier with the oncologist became very apparent to me and she said I said I remember looking at her and and I couldn't say anything I was like whatever how do I just keep it to myself Marion me and then reveal be the just look at her and I said well I got news for you I was told that I can't have kids and thinking that this person who was the love of my life at that moment would probably my wife that was her first response fast forward a few years after marriage actually quit a year after marriage knowing that we couldn't have children she got pregnant the only thing they told me I couldn't have kids recipes told me that when they told me when I was 16 and I couldn't have kids she came to me after she said you will have children and I said okay thanks Mom develop My Life by face death a few times in my life I get the Lord is always been faithful and showing me that he is in control of man is not logical reason I know that there are some things that happened that cannot be explained based on the biology and the physics of her existence practice now which was talk a little bit about that to you I think I have these dates right you graduate UCSF and 83 and then Stanford in 86 and then how do you end up on the Central Coast well that the time you know what when I got here it is going to be a fairly simple camping here at the end of my gear for Palo Alto to Los Angeles to see my folks I had two little kids to toe and we went camping at at Grover City and that was named after Grover from Sesame Street in Morro Bay and Cambria and my family in Los Angeles It's a Small Town people are nice to be kneaded neonatal intensive care develop here during the mid-80s and I had that training from Stanford and so I actually nail down a job you're here before I finished the first one in my residency class to get a job I turn down a fellowship in neonatal medicine Derek Stanford just to come here because I knew that I wanted to raise a family and for whatever reason it's time to come here and now I realize that I was supposed to be here if nothing more than for my family so let's talk a little bit about the work you're doing now with Bravo Pediatrics & Beyond so when did Bravo Pediatrics begin I was in a couple of Medical Group so I came here with his forehead and with the San Luis clinic at 86 join Pediatric Associates which is a wonderful single specialty Pediatric Group right man crate pediatricians that I started with dr. Patterson Tedford to downtown Akron these are great guys I mean really Seminole people very instrumental in venturing me and then we sold our practice to Mission Medical in 2001 that when that fell apart in the ear of a miniature consolidation medical history I decided to go out on my own and informal practice I remember from I can't go through another group break up and so I forward my own practice until I told myself I would never have another partner I would just be by myself this is the way I wanted to do things I needed a committee of one and no meetings and that's what a committee of one off so but that wasn't what God wanted and eventually 20 years ago I started and a little office of California and the probable pediatrix Medical Group where we have fell for physicians in the NFPA