UCLA Health medical student Jacqueline Cabral has been named a Pisacano Scholar by the Pisacano Leadership Foundation. Cabral is the third consecutive UCLA PRIME-LA student to receive the designation.
A fourth-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Cabral was selected from a national pool of students for the highly competitive Pisacano Scholars Leadership Program. Created by the American Board of Family Medicine, the program recognizes students of family medicine that have shown remarkable leadership qualities, academic performance, communication skills and clinical care. Each scholar receives a $5,000 scholarship for their final year of medical school and first three years of family medicine training.
Cabral was selected as a 2026 Pisacano Scholar for pairing lived experience with concrete, community-centered action. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she saw how documentation status shaped access to care and chose family medicine for its focus on whole-person care, trust and advocacy. Drawing on her Master of Public Policy training, she led a partnership with a local federally qualified health center to help patients keep their Medi-Cal coverage and co-developed a series preparing future California providers to care for undocumented patients.
Cabral plans to pursue a career in family medicine after graduating.
“I am honored to have received this recognition from the Pisacano Leadership Foundation,” Cabral said. “Family medicine is a field with a deep commitment to caring for underserved communities and translating patient experiences into advocacy that advances health equity. I am excited to continue to learn from family physician leaders through the Pisacano Leadership Foundation.
“I am also deeply grateful to the communities who have brought me this far, to my family who modeled resilience and empathy for others, and to the family physicians in LA County that have inspired me with their work,” Cabral continued.
Cabral is the third consecutive PRIME-LA student to receive the award, having been preceded by Dr. Denise Jimenez-Tapia in 2025 and Dr. Elizabeth Flores in 2024. PRIME is a UC-wide program dedicated to training future physicians to advance innovative approaches to healthcare delivery, policy, research and community engagement, with a focus on improving health outcomes across California’s communities.
Previous Pisacano Scholar awardees from UCLA PRIME-LA include Dr. Abhinaya Narayanan (2021) and Dr. Maggie Chen (2015). Other UCLA recipients include Dr. Max Goldstein (2014) and Dr. Katrina Bradford (1993).