Alexis Alemán and Irvin Garcia did not expect to amass more than 350,000 followers when they started the Instagram account @foosinmedicine.

But now students have told Alemán, who will graduate this spring with a master’s in social science, and Garcia, who graduated from the David Geffen School of Medicine, that they pursued professional degrees because of the account.

“It’s a blessing,” Alemán said. “I love that people are getting inspired and motivated by the stuff that we put up.”

Alemán said he and Garcia started Foos in Medicine four years ago to share their experiences pursuing medicine as first-generation Latino students and inspire students from similar backgrounds to pursue higher education. “Foo” is an informal term used in Latino communities to refer to a friend, Alemán said.

About 6% of physicians in the United States are Latino, despite Latinos comprising 20% of the U.S. population, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

“If it’s going to inspire one kid, that’s all I want,” Alemán said.

Edwyn Lozano, a UCLA law student, said Foos in Medicine’s content helped him gain the confidence to start his TikTok account @thefooinlaw, where he provides advice and motivation for low-income students applying to law school.

Alemán and Lozano were raised in South Central Los Angeles, where Lozano said students often gave up on their dreams because others lacked faith in them. After high school, Alemán said his family expected him to enter the workforce to support his family instead of going to college.

“I realized that other people around me grew up with AP classes and tutors, knowing that they wanted to be a doctor from a younger age,” Alemán said. “I didn’t even know that just because I didn’t know it was possible.”

Alemán said he doubted that he could get into medical school until he was accepted into the David Geffen School of Medicine’s Pre-Medical Enrichment Program, a summer program for undergraduate students from educationally underserved and low-income backgrounds.

His desire to give back to his community in South Central LA helped him persevere, he added.

Alemán said his background and videos are valuable given the underrepresentation of Latinos in medicine. Understanding Spanish-speaking patients’ language and culture will allow him to make them more comfortable in the hospital, he added.

In an Instagram video, Garcia said serving patients who reminded him of his family members helped him push through long hours of working in emergency medicine. Garcia grew up helping his parents, who were migrant agricultural workers in Oregon, he added in another video.

“Having that privilege and opportunity to take care of them on one of the scariest days of their lives, showing them that I’m someone there to take care of them and that they can trust, it’s such a beautiful experience,” Garcia said in the video.

Erica Garcia, a first-generation third-year psychobiology student, said she pursued healthcare to make her parents’ sacrifices worthwhile. She added that accounts like Alemán and Irvin Garcia’s have helped her see her dreams were achievable – despite language barriers and difficulties in accessing resources in education.

Foos in Medicine also provides advice and mentorship for Latinos pursuing medicine at campus events, said Fiorella Garcia Rodas, a fourth-year physiological science student and the external coordinator of Latinxs/Chicanxs for Community Medicine, which supports Latino UCLA students pursuing healthcare.

“It makes me feel happier than anything else, knowing that I’m helping others in some way,” Alemán said.