Residency Faculty

Cristina Gamboa, MD (she/her)

Core Faculty, Obstetrics and Gynecology
Chair of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB)

Dr. Cristina Gamboa is an OB GYN physician and Director of Ambulatory Women’s Health Services at Salud Para La Gente, a federally qualified health center in the Central Coast of California. She is core faculty at the Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) Dominican Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program in Santa Cruz, California. Dr. Gamboa earned her medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago. She completed residency training at Kaiser Permanente Northern California Obstetrics and Gynecology in San Francisco. 

She proudly comes from multiple generations of farmworkers who labored in California’s central valley dating back to the 1950s. She has a special interest in maternal and reproductive health as it relates to the Latinx community. Her clinical and advocacy work address the systemic and local inequities in healthcare that adversely impact Latinx families, with a focus on Latinx immigrant women, agricultural field workers, young mothers, and the development of a family- and community-centered approach to caring for pregnant people, particularly those with comorbidities such as diabetes and hypertensive disorders. 

Dr. Gamboa has collaborated on various projects with California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC) and the non-profit organization Every Mother Counts (EMC) as a subject matter expert on maternal health. She has twenty years of experience in research and publications as it relates to health inequities existing among the Latinx community. Recognizing the impact physician and community concordance has on health equity and outcomes, she is passionate about strengthening and diversifying our healthcare workforce. In her role as the Chair of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee for the MSM Dominican Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program, Dr. Gamboa is working to expand opportunities for doctors from historically marginalized communities and to cultivate belonging in residency programs for those who are currently underrepresented in medicine. This residency program is the first new program under the partnership of Morehouse School of Medicine and CommonSpirit Health system developed to advance health equity. 

Dr. Gamboa is a graduate of University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she obtained a bachelors in Psychobiology.  She is also a dedicated runner and participates in half marathons as a representative of the EMC running team to raise awareness and funds for maternal health. She is also the creator and co-chair of a maternal child health program at Hospital de la Familia in Nuevo Progresso, San Marcos, Guatemala providing access and quality perinatal care to a community burdened with one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world. Dr. Gamboa’s passion for improving the health of historically marginalized communities both domestically and internationally has led her to create the Gamboa Family Global Health Scholarship to afford Latinx students the opportunity to participate in global health while on their healthcare career journey which will be awarding the first scholarship Fall 2024.