Ricardo Alvarez, MD

Meet Ricardo

Ricardo Alvarez is a primary care physician providing primary care community health services over the last 30 years in the mission district of San Francisco to the predominantly LatinX community. He is a trauma-informed medical provider who has been honored to work in varying capacities with brilliant prisoners, family, and community whose voices, emerging from the crucible of the prison experience, provide the world with powerful messages of liberation. He is a leading supporter of engaging our diverse professional organizations to honor their mandate to report parole elder abuse using principles of trauma-informed care.

Area of Practice

Family Practice Physician

Trauma Informed Physician

Poet

Father

Abolitionist

Student of Life

Contact
Contact

Mailing:
PMB 1006
447 Sutter Street
Suite 405
San Francisco, CA 94108
Phone: (415) 360-0033
Email: R.AlvarezMD@paroleelderabuse.org

About Me

Born in the Washington Heights ghetto of New York City in 1961 of mixed descent, Ricardo witnessed the violence of poverty in America at a time of massive social upheaval. He was blessed to be raised by a single mother who supported her family while studying nursing and went on to work on some of the very public health programs that emerged from the health advocacy of the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords. He was also the godchild of philosopher and liberation theologist Ivan Illich, who nurtured a radical and profoundly humanistic examination of the existential questions of our walk on earth. He has been blessed to be guided by teachers of diverse traditions, including the wisdom of the Mayan and Indigenous healers here and abroad.

Education

Education

Residency Program
9/90-6/93
University of California San Francisco (UCSF)
San Francisco General Hospital Family Practice Residency Program
Medical Doctorate
9/85-6/90
University of Connecticut School of Medicine
Undergraduate
8/79-1/84
Harvard University
Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with focus on medical sociology
FELLOWSHIPS:
2012-2014
California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) Leadership Fellowship
Profile Details

Profile Details

  • Name: Ricardo Alvarez, MD
  • Title: The Mischievous Physician Abolitionist
  • Specialization: prison medical consultations, use of art and poetry in healing 
  • Location: Oakland, USA
  • Affiliations: Mumia Abu Jamal Health Committee, P.E.A.C.E
  • Years of Practice: 30 years; since March 2021, serves as personal medical consultant to Mumia Abu Jamal
  • Mission: To use our artistic expression of our love for our family in prison and honor the call to free our elders.
  • Contact: r.alvarezmd@paroleabuse.org