Feliciano Serrano on Medicine, Progress and Purpose

Some careers follow a clear path from the beginning, while others take shape through a series of choices, challenges, and opportunities. For Feliciano Serrano, M.D., his career in medicine developed through both careful planning and a willingness to pursue new areas where he believed he could make a greater impact.

The Los Angeles native has built his career around nephrology, vascular care, research, and interventional medicine. Along the way, he studied at several major institutions, contributed to medical research, worked with underserved communities, and explored new approaches to patient care. Throughout that journey, one principle has remained consistent: the health and wellbeing of patients come first.

“People’s health and wellbeing take priority or precedence always,” Serrano says. “Everything else comes second.”

How Feliciano Serrano’s Los Angeles roots shaped his career

Serrano grew up in Los Angeles and has described economic hardship and a low socioeconomic background as some of the obstacles he had to overcome early in life. Those experiences also gave him a close understanding of the communities he would later serve.

His parents were among his strongest influences. Serrano says they taught him to pay attention to people who were struggling and to help when possible. That principle followed him into medicine and eventually into years of pro bono work. He has received recognition from the City of Los Angeles for medical services provided to underserved and homeless populations.

“Being able to change and improve people’s lives even in the face of personal adversity” is how Serrano defines success, and that idea has remained closely tied to the direction of his career.

From USC to a career in kidney medicine

Serrano’s education took him through several areas of science before his career became centred on kidney disease. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Southern California and later completed graduate study in biological technology and genetics at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He ultimately earned his medical degree from the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

After medical school, Serrano completed an internal medicine residency at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles. Even after reaching that point, he felt he needed additional tools to help some of the sickest patients in his community, which pushed him toward nephrology and later toward vascular and interventional procedures.

Why research became an important part of his medical training

Serrano’s path also included extensive research. At the University of Vermont School of Medicine, he completed a nephrology and hypertension fellowship as well as an NIH-supported research fellowship focused on thrombosis in kidney disease.

During this period, he studied why patients with kidney disease often face higher mortality risks. His research included work involving platelet function, thrombosis, chronic renal failure, and hypertension. He also lectured and conducted research connected with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard.

Earlier in his career, Serrano had already been exposed to research through projects involving cancer, neuroscience, oxidative stress, and the Human Genome Project. For him, research was not separate from patient care. It was another way to understand why existing treatments worked, where they fell short, and what might be improved.

What led Serrano into interventional nephrology?

After completing his kidney fellowship, Serrano entered an Interventional Nephrology and Vascular Procedures fellowship at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. He has described the programme as highly competitive, with only two physicians selected from an applicant pool of roughly 200.

The training expanded his work beyond the medical management of kidney disease and into procedures involving veins, arteries, vascular access, stents, and other interventions. That combination of nephrology and vascular medicine became an important part of his career and reinforced a larger lesson he had already begun to learn: progress sometimes requires questioning how things have traditionally been done.

Challenging the status quo in patient care

One experience stands out when Serrano discusses setbacks and eventual progress. He recalls facing scrutiny after helping pioneer a different approach to dialysis. At the time, the idea was viewed with suspicion, but roughly a decade later, he says the methodology had become accepted as part of standard care.

The experience shaped how he thinks about innovation. “Do what is right always even if the status quo, political or popular belief says the contrary,” he says.

For Serrano, new ideas should not be pursued simply because they are new. They should be tested, refined, and improved with patient well-being as the priority. That is also why he focuses heavily on process.

“You measure success by perfecting the mechanism and not by simply assessing outcomes,” he says. “If you do things right and improve on these methods, eventually you will achieve favorable outcomes.”

What does long-term growth look like in medicine?

Despite decades of education and specialised training, Serrano does not view medical learning as something that ends with a degree or fellowship. He points to collaboration with colleagues and community leaders as one way he continues to improve.

“The goal of every day is to simply be better than yesterday,” he says.

His broader career reflects that approach, with experience spanning clinical medicine, scientific research, teaching, philanthropy, publication, and specialised procedures. He is also bilingual in English and Spanish, which has helped him communicate with patients across Los Angeles communities.

Through each stage, the common thread has been less about collecting titles and more about developing better ways to serve patients. For Serrano, bringing a big idea to life often starts with something much smaller: noticing what could work better, asking difficult questions, and being willing to improve the method until the results follow.