For immediate release: Feb. 6, 2006

GALVESTON, Texas — For Dr. Nitza Cintron, it’s never too late to change career paths.

Cintron joined the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston as an associate professor of internal medicine in January 2005. She took the long road to get here.

Before joining the UTMB faculty, she was a physician and scientist with a background in biochemistry and molecular biology and was chief of the entire space medicine program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Cintron lived what would seem to be a prestigious, high-profile career, steering astronauts through rigorous training, ensuring their health and safety during shuttle flights, and directing their medical treatments while they were in space.

Working at NASA-JSC from 1978 to 1991, she was fulfilling her lifelong dream of working as a scientist. She had never considered practicing medicine. But in 1991, NASA offered Cintron a fellowship. The agency granted her a leave of absence and supported her attendance to medical school.

Cintron seized on the opportunity. She saw it as an intellectual challenge, not as the first step in a career change. At the time, Cintron was in her 40s and had planned to “grow old” and retire at NASA. She never expected to use the M.D. degree to practice medicine with patients outside NASA, and didn’t even plan to do a medical residency.

“I grew up wanting to be a scientist. I had no plans of being a doctor,” Cintron said.

She enrolled as a medical student at the UTMB School of Medicine in 1991, attending classes alongside much younger students. But along her journey as a medical student and resident at UTMB, Cintron discovered a love of caring for patients. She decided she wanted to shift course and be a physician. By the time she received her medical degree from UTMB, she was 45 years old. However, her age and being a single mother didn’t deter her.

“It’s never ‘late,’” Cintron said. “I’m a ‘plain’ doctor. I’m starting from square one.”

She began her internal medicine internship at UTMB in 1995. Afterward, she returned to JSC full time for a year and a half to serve as director of the life sciences research group there. She then came back to UTMB to do a residency in internal medicine from late 1997 to 2000.
 
Cintron grew to love caring for patients and helping them and their families during their darkest hours. Dealing with the frail elderly or a cancer patient was a far cry from dealing with a very fit NASA astronaut corps, though Dr. Cintron notes that even astronauts have health problems.

Going to medical school and doing residency posed its own challenges, like having to study for exams. The mind is like a muscle, Cintron says, so “use it or lose it. If you don’t stimulate those brain cells, they won’t work,” Cintron said.

She also was a single mother of a 7-year-old son when she started medical school. She went to bed at 8:30 p.m. and woke up at 2:30 a.m. to study for about three hours before getting her son ready for school and going to classes at UTMB. (Her son Robert Trevino, who received an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Texas at Austin, now is a first year veterinary student at Texas A&M University in College Station.)

After her UTMB medical training, Cintron returned to JSC for several years and was promoted to chief of the entire space medicine program. She oversaw 265 people and a multimillion dollar budget. She held that top job until 2004. Despite the high profile NASA post, Cintron couldn’t shake off her new calling — that of being a “plain” doctor.

“I just really wanted to do medicine,” Cintron said. “It really is a calling.” Now, as an associate professor of internal medicine, she treats patients and teaches.

At UTMB, she gets to blend clinical practice with her background as a research scientist. Ever since she was a little girl growing up in Puerto Rico, where she was born, Cintron had wanted to be a scientist. She played with chemistry sets and put up a sign on her bedroom door saying “Scientist at Work. Do Not Disturb.” Cintron received her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and biology at the Universidad de Puerto Rico and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

In June, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in science from the Universidad del Este in Puerto Rico. During its graduation ceremony, the university recognized Cintron’s distinguished career and commitment to her profession, education and service to the community. The honor also recognized her “outstanding leadership and dedication” to Hispanics. As she encourages Hispanic students to pursue careers in math, science and medicine, she advises them to follow her own approach: “I focused more on the competence and being good,” Cintron said. “Just do the best you can. Right now, my goal is to be clinically really, really good.”
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
UTMB Media Hotline (409) 772-NEWS
Seena.Simon@utmb.edu (409) 772-8772