Dr. Valenzuela honored with Community Health Champion Award

California University of Science and Medicine’s (CUSM) Women’s Health Department Chair, Guillermo Valenzuela, M.D., was selected to receive the Community Health Champion Award from the Time for Change Foundation, a local non-profit housing and transitional service for homeless and formerly incarcerated women on Thursday, April 8, 2021.

Each year an individual has been chosen for their hard work and dedication. Dr. Valenzuela has been a supportive physician towards low-income women in the community. The foundation admires his overall support toward women’s health and well-being by going above and beyond to ensure that females have access to health care.

“Dr. Valenzuela has selflessly contributed to the lives of women and children. We are honored to present this award for his generous contributions for women’s health and to organizations that support the well-being of all women,” said Vanessa Perez, Director of the Time for Change Foundation.

“The Community Health Champion Award was given to Dr. Valenzuela because from a humble beginning, he swore as a child that he would become a doctor to provide medical care for his community. It is the dream of a young boy that has flourished into a multitude of medical practices serving our low-income communities with quality accessible health care. It is with great pleasure that we honor him with the 2021 Community Champion Award,” said Loni Love, EMMY and NAACP Image, Co-Host of The Real.

Dr. Lyons, CUSM Dean and President stated, “We are pleased to join in recognizing Dr. Valenzuela for his long-standing commitment to the health and well-being of our community and his particular commitment to those who are most in need and most vulnerable.”

Dr. Valenzuela not only donated his time, but he donated a 10,000 square foot building to the Time for Change Foundation to help them make a difference in women and children’s lives.

He has shown great passion in his career as a physician and Chair of the Women’s Health Department at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center (ARMC). He is an Obstetrics and Gynecology Physician and a Maternal-Fetal Medicine Physician. In addition, he works at numerous outpatient “Mommy and Me” clinics that provide family planning, gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatric care.

Dr. Valenzuela also created a Foundation in 2015 to improve the health of underserved communities across San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Dr. Valenzuela’s philanthropy doesn’t stop with his Foundation. He also founded the TECH Laptop Scholarship Program, which has awarded more than 100 personal laptop computers to elementary school students in the Riverside Unified School District to help encourage students to think about their future and consider attending college.

He has been involved in numerous clinical trials related to obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health and he is the former president of the San Bernardino County Medical Society.

“We are focused on making improvements to women’s health and health care access, and to strengthening the Inland Empire’s physician/patient ratio; Our region has the lowest physician-to- resident ratio in California with only 39 physicians per 100,000 residents (about half the recommended ratio),” said Dr. Valenzuela.