Our culture and values
We thrive on collaboration and innovative approaches to care.
We honor diversity in our staff and patients.
We create opportunities for learning and career-growth.
We embrace equity and inclusion and are committed to providing care for everyone in our communities.
We're in this together.
As an employee at PPMM, you're part of a team from Day One.
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We support the team by showing respect and honoring all our patients and colleagues.
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We jump in to help other team members.
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When faced with new challenges, we try and we learn.
Every day, we are guided by the heart of our mission; providing excellent health care and sexual health education to tens of thousands of individuals and families — regardless of income, identity, or zip code — with compassion and without judgment.
To learn more about our culture and mission:
A culture that embraces diversity
Inclusive, Equitable, Intersectional, and Centered on Human Rights
A culture of care and support for your career growth.
Dr. M. Lazarin
Associate Medical Director
After she had just graduated from college and completed a six-month volunteering stint to help communities in Guatemala, Dr. Lazarin became a health services assistant at PPMM. Now, nearly two decades later, she is a family medicine physician and associate medical director here, running the affiliate’s Family Medicine program. “PPMM has offered me incredible opportunities for growth throughout my career,” Dr. Lazarin said. “There’s a real team-based approach to care. I have so many opportunities with talented colleagues who are nurse practitioners and physicians assistants, as their supervisor, to learn from them and to answer questions they have as well. “It’s an amazing place to keep learning while having managers also support your career goals. Mentorship and preparing for leadership are so important here.” She added that working with patients in the community who often don’t have access to health care because they are under-insured or uninsured has been extremely rewarding. “We are one of the only Planned Parenthood affiliates that offers family medicine,” she said. “I feel so supported and valued as a physician. The leadership here has so much respect for providers, and that shows in everything from the benefits they provide us to daily self-care resources like work-access to the Calm app, supporting our mental health. We also have a lot of access to clinical tools and resources as well as dedicated administrative time to review complicated cases.” Dr. Lazarin said it makes her proud to be at the forefront of providing excellent preventive reproductive health care, a specialty that is often overlooked at medical schools and even in the larger health care system. “We have a unique position in providing this kind of care,” she said. “We are known for it. It’s a special place to work.”
Anna E.
Registered Nurse
When she was a college student in the Bay Area, Anna began her Planned Parenthood Mar Monte journey as a volunteer escort at our health centers, leading patients safely into the building for care and making sure they weren’t intimidated by chanting anti-abortion protestors outside. That experience sparked her commitment to our mission and launched a health care career, supported and guided by our staff clinicians and managers, that has made her a highly valued registered nurse at our Silicon Valley health centers. In less than six years, Anna went from being a volunteer to a seasoned health services specialist (HSS) in a PPMM health center to an RN, caring for patients. “After meeting the wonderful nurses at PPMM, I knew I wanted to work here,” she said. “Right from the start, supervisors were so supportive of my career goals and further education. When I went to nursing school in 2017, managers allowed me to work part-time and really advocated for me.” Anna said that she has become especially passionate about being able to provide abortion care to patients who need it. “It’s so rewarding to help people who rely so much on us,” she said. “I’m also always learning new things, like new ways of providing trauma-informed care.” Now Anna is training to be a nurse practitioner, and she knows that PPMM will support her every step of the way. “There is such a strong culture of mentorship here, including helping me succeed in my goals toward the type of care I want to provide,” Anna said. “PPMM draws people who really want to be helpful in the work they do and create deeper relationships with those who do this important work. In so many ways, it feels like a family.”