It was one of those “nonserious” emergency calls the likes of which Michael Brigoli, then with Emergency Medical Services on Hawaii island, was used to fielding all shift long.

In another community the patient might simply have made an appointment to see his regular doctor. But in Pahoa, where physicians are few and a timely appointment can be as hard to secure as a mattress on a Mini Cooper, residents had long become accustomed to dialing 911 as a primary-care option.

While in transit, Brigoli heard another emergency call through the scanner and recognized the address as his calabash uncle’s home. A person was complaining of chest pains.

Because Brigoli’s unit was already occupied, another unit from Keaau, some 15 minutes away, was dispatched.

“My uncle was having a heart attack,” Brigoli said. “I can’t say for sure that I’d have made a difference, but I was closer. My uncle didn’t survive that day.”

The incident proved a critical turning point for Brigoli.

Born and raised in the area, Brigoli had survived a hardscrabble youth that included a period of homelessness and a year in foster care. He was used to working for what he had, and during and after an abortive stint in college, he worked a succession of jobs in fast food, retail and delivery that only served to convince him that he needed to get away to avoid the purgatory of low expectations that lay in his path.

So Brigoli enlisted in the Army, first as a reserve and later as active duty, and received training as a medic. While serving in Alaska he married the former Joycelyn Pacheco, whom he had known since the fourth grade.

The couple returned to Hilo to raise a family, and Brigoli found work as a paramedic with the Hawaii County Fire Department. Brigoli enjoyed the work and was proud to be part of a profession that seemed beyond the reach of someone with his background. Yet over time he grew painfully aware of how the worsening shortage of doctors in Pahoa was straining the local health care system.

“Someone would have a cough, and they would go to the emergency room,” he said. “It was hard to blame them because the last time they got sick, they couldn’t get (an) appointment (with their doctor) for four weeks, and in the meantime they got pneumonia. Hilo Medical became the second-busiest ER in the state, which was crazy. And when they started opening acute-care clinics, those clinics got overwhelmed, too.

“The shortage of doctors is taxing the resources of the community,” he said.

During visits to local schools, Brigoli used to encourage students to pursue careers in medicine to help alleviate the problem. After his uncle died, Brigoli decided to heed his own advice.

With the support of his wife and two sons, Brigoli sold the family home, moved the family to Oahu and headed back to college. After completing a bachelor’s in public administration from the University of Hawaii at West Oahu in 2015, Brigoli applied for and was accepted to the John A. Burns School of Medicine.

The pursuit of a medical career has taken Brigoli not just into personally uncharted waters, but into oceans he never knew existed for people like him. Growing up, he had never met a physician who was Native Hawaiian, much less one who had been through the foster care system.

Yet, the admissions officers at the medical school were impressed with Brigoli’s hard-earned insights as a combat medic and emergency medical technician/firefighter, the organizational skills he demonstrated in starting a nonprofit soccer academy for kids in Pahoa, and the tenacity he showed with his participation in the Native Hawaiian Student Pathway to Medicine and Ke Ola Mau Scholars programs.

So impressive was Brigoli’s application, in fact, that the American Association of Medical Colleges recently included Brigoli as one of seven U.S. medical students to be featured in its “Anatomy of an Applicant” series.

In JABSOM, the only medical program he considered, Brigoli said he has enjoyed the kind of practical, hands-on training that he feels will best prepare him for a successful medical career. Now in his third year, Brigoli, 43, said he values the diversity of the students and faculty and the collaborative work with fellow medical students that is an integral part of the school’s problem-based learning curriculum.

Brigoli said he is also grateful to his wife, who returned to working full time as an occupational therapist to support the family, and to his sons, who he said never complained about the sacrifices the family has had to make.

“It took me a while to get to this point, but if I can make it from where I started, anyone can,” Brigoli said. “You just need to dream big and see a need and work toward meeting it.”

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.