As doctors leave en masse in Puerto Rico, a rapper tries to fill the gaps

SAN JUAN – On a recent morning in an Afro-Caribbean community in northeastern Puerto Rico, Dr. Pedro Juan Vázquez was going door to door as part of his medical rounds. He greeted the town’s elderly residents with a cheerful “Good afternoon!” and a smile, casually asking if they wanted their vital signs taken.

Many were surprised when they were approached with an offer of medical care. A man in a gray tank top opened his screen door and said, “Sure,” and sat on his porch to be examined.

Although Vázquez is a doctor, he is better known in Puerto Rico as a rapper who performs under the stage name PJ Sin Suela.

The 34-year-old is trying to fulfill his passion for music while helping those in need — and raising awareness about a health crisis on the island of 3.2 million. The U.S. territory has been struggling with power outages and a shortage of medical workers, with many fleeing to the U.S. mainland for better wages.

Puerto Rico lost more than 8,600 of its nearly 18,800 doctors in just over a decade, according to a 2023 report from the think tank The Center for a New Economy. The problem is expected to become even more acute in the coming years.

“We have a huge exodus of young people,” Vázquez told The Associated Press. “In Puerto Rico, we have a crisis that is much bigger than people think.”

He travels from the capital San Juan at least once a week to remote areas of the island to treat underserved communities struggling with the aftermath of hurricanes, earthquakes and a weak economy.

After hanging up his medical scrubs, Vázquez has devoted his time to producing and performing music that addresses issues such as social inequality, poverty and gun violence. Many deaths in Puerto Rico are caused by domestic violence and stray bullets that strike innocent victims.

“A bullet flies, lost like a child… the wind caresses it, trying to make news, falls into a skull, without any form of justice,” he raps in “Las Balas Lloran” (“Bullets Cry”).

In “Somos Más” (“We Are More”) he addresses the dire economic conditions on the island, singing: “The blame is placed on the worker, the one who goes out in the rain and the sun, public servants, teachers and nurses.”

His focus on social inequality resonates in his home country and among Puerto Ricans homesick abroad.

Vázquez comes from a background of leaving and returning to the island, a back-and-forth familiar to many Puerto Ricans who hold U.S. passports. He does not criticize those who have left Puerto Rico for the U.S. mainland, though he has done the opposite.

“You can’t judge anyone, everyone has their own story,” he said. “I’m blessed to have two careers that I can do and make a living from.”

He was born in the Bronx in New York City, but moved with his family to the southern town of Ponce, Puerto Rico. He later went to Pennsylvania and then returned to Bayamón, Puerto Rico, to study medicine, where he became a doctor in 2015.

Vázquez became a household name to a younger generation in Latin America in 2018 with the single “Cuál Es Tu Plan?” The song was a collaboration with Puerto Rican icon Bad Bunny and reggaeton singer Ñejo. The recognition he gained led to collaborations with Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda and René Pérez, known by the stage name Residente, the frontman of the former reggaeton duo Calle 13.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, he switched from holding a microphone to a stethoscope and worked full-time at a hospital in Ponce for a year, working as a family doctor to patients of all ages who were eager to be cared for by the popular rapper.

Vázquez said some doctors initially doubted his qualifications after years of touring and rapping, despite the fact that he had maintained his medical credentials.

“After a month, everyone knew that this was not a joke for me, and that I am really good at what I do,” he said. “I shut everyone who doubted me up.”

According to Dr. Carlos Díaz Vélez, president of Puerto Rico’s Association of Surgical Doctors, Vázquez has helped draw attention to the health crisis in Puerto Rico.

“He has criticized what is happening here because he himself knows what the problems are within the health system,” Díaz said.

In 2023, Vázquez was recognized for his work with a humanitarian award at the Premios Tu Música Urbano, an awards ceremony honoring urban music artists.

Milagros Martínez, a community leader in the western town of Hormigueros, recalled how Vázquez arrived in September 2022 after Hurricane Fiona to perform medical checks on families without power or water.

“The younger people recognized him,” Martínez said. “But he knew how to separate his medical role from his role as an artist.”

Since then, Vazquez has been working on an album he hopes to release soon. He has reduced his medical duties from full-time to once or twice a week at a mobile clinic for a nonprofit called Direct Relief.

Meanwhile, Vázquez is dealing with a problem that plagues both his clinic and his recording studio: frequent power outages.

He has had to leave his studio several times because there was no generator, but what worries him most are the power outages that affect his patients.

In June, towns in the central and southern parts of the island suffered prolonged power outages due to extreme heat.

“You will see people without electricity for two days, because of the heat we have, and we have a huge transportation problem that people don’t talk about, which prevents many people from reaching the hospital,” Vázquez said.

Now more than ever he feels the need to combine his passion for singing with caring for others, which has become easier over time.

When he needs an extra pair of hands, he calls on volunteers to help with mobile clinics in Puerto Rico. And his fans pitch in.

“They sign up to treat patients with me all day for free,” he said. “Sometimes I come out of (the clinic) crying.”

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Associated Press videographer Alejandro Granadillos contributed to this report.