Mabel Kimble MD MS MPH
Growing up as a first-generation Black Filipina woman, I never saw someone who looked like me wearing a white coat. I was raised by a hardworking Filipina mother and a devoted African American father who served in the Navy. My journey to medicine was shaped by watching my father battle liver failure and realizing how systemic inequities can rob families of time. As a single mother myself, navigating medical school felt like climbing a mountain with no trail map—but I kept going because I believed others were watching.
I didn’t always have the resources, but I did have resilience—and eventually, I had mentors who saw something in me when I didn’t yet see it in myself. That kind of belief changes lives. To me, “uplift” means being that voice that says, “You belong here,” especially when the world tries to tell you otherwise.
