#  Ernesto Gonzalez-Martinez 

Professor of Dermatology, HMS

Dermatologist, Massachusetts General Hospital

 

 

 



   ![Ernesto Gonzalez-Martinez is holding up a black and white framed photo of his mother.](/sites/g/files/omnuum11411/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2026-05/38.Ernesto-Gonzalez-Martinez-Questions.jpg?h=16f098c7&itok=WyPb4lxi) 

 



 





 

My mother, Aurora Martinez, who passed away 15 years ago, has always been my inspiration. Her vision as a widow with two children facing social and racial discrimination was to strive for the education of her children beyond the second grade education she could only attained due to her limited resources. She had been homeless before she married my father while living in a squalid environment with her mother and two siblings, who ended dying of tuberculosis, in a cardboard tent under the house of a friend. After she married she worked as a maid in the family of my father who did not accept her as a family member because she was a mulatta. She never demonstrated recrimination and taught us the importance of service without remuneration. Her message of love and understanding, and her non-judgmental demeanor continues to reverberate and has been my beacon, as well as my older brother's, through our lives and our families.

Although the choice of becoming a physician was unexpected and serendipitous, the career as a provider of medical service has always been predicated on her core values of unbiased service to all irrespective of social status, racial background and medical condition. Furthermore, my life as an educator fulfilled my promise to her to share knowledge with my peers and my patients and strive to expand a holistic vision of life through learning. Her experience as a homeless, black woman has been the paradigm for my efforts on behalf of minority and underserved groups, including my in-kind dermatologic services to the homeless community in Boston and my telemedicine, consulting services to disenfranchised communities in Puerto Rico, Honduras and Boston. In essence, all my efforts and accomplishments as a provider of care and as an educator at the MGH and the Harvard system have the genesis and are a testament of the core values instilled by my mother.



 

 

 



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- ## Person Categories
    
     [Dimensions](/person-categories/dimensions)
- ## Institution
    
     [Massachusetts General Hospital](/institution/massachusetts-general-hospital)