I am a physician assistant at MD Anderson Cancer Center, specializing in hepato-pancreato biliary (HPB) cancer. I treat and perform surgeries on patients with liver cancer, stage 4 colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, and more. Recently, I was honored to be nominated as one of only two physician assistants in the HPB field to represent North and South America at the International Hepato-Pancreato Biliary Association. A few months ago, I traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to present and represent America. Another significant achievement for João is his recent graduation after completing five years of general surgery residency at Houston Methodist. He is now a plastic surgery fellow at UT Health in Houston, aspiring to become a craniofacial plastic surgeon. João envisions having his own practice one day, alongside a stem cell lab integrated with AI technology. In his free time, he self-teaches robotics and machine learning.

Beyond our career goals, our top priority in life is each other and our faith in God. I am very close to my family, my parents, sisters, and niece and nephew and they’ve adopted João as their own son since he doesn’t have family in America. We love spending our free time exploring coffee shops, riding our bikes along the trail downtown, and enjoying fine dining in Houston. We also love traveling whenever time allows. What’s most important in life is not getting bogged down by the little distractions and cherishing every present moment.