New citizen to become first physician in her family

Second-year-medical student Azeline Arcenal poses for a photo with her parents, Joseph and Maria Arcenal.

As a sophomore at Murphy High School, Azeline Arcenal had the chance to shadow healthcare workers in the Summer Scrubs program organized by the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce. She spent the first day in a cardiac catheterization lab, where she watched a cardiologist insert a stent into a patient’s artery to treat a blockage.

It was a paradigm shift for Arcenal. “I never realized all the different kinds of things that doctors do,” she said. “That stood out for me.”

By her freshman year at the University of South Alabama, Arcenal was certain that she wanted to become a physician – the first in her family. Today, she is in her second year at the USA College of Medicine, a school she chose in part because of the smaller class size.

“Knowing that I will be the first doctor in my family makes me strive to be the kind of physician that patients can trust and depend on,” she said. “One day, I hope to be at a point where patients are at ease with me and feel confident in my ability to treat them.”

Born in Manila, the Philippines, Arcenal moved with her family to Mobile at age 5 when her father took a position in the aerospace industry. The family immediately began the naturalization process to become citizens, an undertaking that took her 16 years. As it happened, Arcenal found herself preparing for the Naturalization Test while also studying for the MCAT.

“Since I grew up here, the Naturalization Test wasn’t too difficult,” she said. “Most of the questions were pretty simple, though I had to brush up on the names of senators and representatives.”

In 2018, a month after her mother and sisters became citizens, Arcenal and her father raised their right hands and took the Oath of Allegiance with about 30 others in a ceremony in Montgomery.  

For the oath, the group stood and turned to face friends and families for photos and videos. “When I started reciting the oath, I could feel tears welling up in my eyes,” she said.

Tears turned to elation when Arcenal stepped forward to receive her certificate of naturalization. “I finally was able to achieve a dream that took 16 years of waiting,” she said.

Her new citizenship status allowed her to apply for a U.S. passport and register to vote. “I remember feeling jealous that my friends were able to vote, and I could not,” she said. “I feel pretty excited about voting in my first presidential election.”

Arcenal said she is also looking forward to her clerkship rotations during her third and fourth years of medical school. “What I like the most about medical school is that we are able to go to clinics early on during the M1 and M2 years, and interact with actual patients, and it’s rewarding to be able to tie in what we learned during class and apply it to our experiences in the clinics,” she said.