Personal Info

Henry Gonzales

Spouse: Sharon - We met when I was a third year medical student at U.C. Davis. She was working in Medical Affairs, Clinical Education. We married in my fourth year of medical school, on Memorial Day weekend, traveling down south to Carmel/Monterey. Now married 26 years. Sharon attended Sac. State, with a degree in Education.

Children: I have 3 children from my first marriage, a daughter and twin sons, aged 36 and 35 respectively. Lisa is a contract attorney who works for Cisco Systems and lives in Santa Cruz. Lawrence and Lenny both work for Wire with backgrounds in telecommunications and live in Laguna Beach. Lawrence has one son, Nikolas who is 11 years old. Unfortunately Lawrence is divorced but actively involved in raising Niko. Lisa is has been married for only a year and still trying to decide on family vs., career +family vs., career. I have 2 daughters by marriage who are now 38 and 37. Laura lives in a suburb of Atlanta and is busy raising our 2 grandsons and a granddaughter, Gerald, Aaron, and Dana. Gail has two sons, Michael and Jake. Laura is a stay at home mom and Gail works in security.

Post high school: Matriculated to Univ. of New Mexico after high school on a full NAVY ROTC scholarship but couldn’t tolerate discipline and dropped out. Tried again at San Jose State and just couldn’t motivate myself. Eventually got married and began a family. Unfortunately I don’t think I was ready for that either. After divorcing I tried to find myself. I worked full time, nights, at the Mountain View Post Office, sorting mail, and went to school days. The slow process started with Junior College and any assortment of classes in search of myself. Eventually I transferred to U.C. Berkeley with a major in Biochemistry. I met some students there who were involved in starting a free clinic in East Oakland. They convinced me that I should get involved and I did. They gave me the responsibility of setting up the laboratory and teaching everyone else how to perform simple lab tests, phlebotomies, etc. This was my first introduction into administering health care. I was able to use my language skills to obtain information from indigent Hispanic patients, transfer that information to our volunteer physicians, and perform lab tests that would benefit the health of these poor people. My search was over. I took the MCAT(medical college aptitude test), at the end of my junior year and ranked in the 90^th percentile nationwide. My volunteer work, good scores, UCB’s reputation, and my perseverance, got me into medical school.

Medical school was a blur. The fastest paced 4 years of my life. Residency, in retrospect, was a breeze. The hours were long, sometimes up to 120 a week, but the training was intense, the experiences sometimes mind boggling and often mundane. Overall the most satisfying four years of my life. After medical school Sharon and I decided that we wanted someplace less drug oriented and without all of the social upheavals that California had to offer. We moved to a small town in New Mexico and spent 7 years there. Eventually our preferences changed and we moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where we have resided for the last 14 years. I am now in the process of becoming semi-retired. We are moving to a small coastal community south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Things I am proud of:

Graduating with honors from U.C. Berkeley

Receiving a U.C. Regents Scholarship for 4 years at U.C. Davis.

Acceptance into medical school at U.C. Davis and Stanford without the benefit of minority admissions.

Dept. chair or Chief of Ob-Gyn at each hospital where I have practiced. Continuously for the last 19 years.

Passing the specialty Board certification exam in Ob-Gyn, twice.

Being the first member of my extended family to graduate from college.

Staying married for 26 years. My wife deserves most of this credit!

Helping win the first annual basketball game between the upstart freshmen med. Students and the old men of the sophomore class. We did it in spite of calf cramps, hypoxia, suboptimal left ventricular output, and memory lapses. But our hearts were big!

Delivering over 5,000 babies. I swore I would never work nights again after working nights in the post office for 4 years! Can you say INDUCTION"

Becoming a follower of and believer in Yeshua. None of what I am was without his blessing.

Favorite teacher: Mr. Gradiska: He never finished explaining the graduated tax scale. Remember? He said none of us would have to worry about taxes for income over $50,000! I always liked the way he salivated through the corners of his mouth when he was excited or inspired by a topic in Government. That was focus. He loved us as much as any teacher we ever had at Ravenswood.

Favorite prank: The night we hung a "dummy" Woodside football player in effigy over their goal post, the week of the annual homecoming game. As far as I know we were never discovered!