To live in the light of friendship, to walk in the path of chivalry, to serve for the love of service.

Trauma surgeon, professor, and researcher Juan Asensio, M.D., recites this credo of his Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity daily. It is an appropriate motivator for someone who has spent the last 22 years helping people in some of America’s toughest cities navigate the fine line between life and death, regardless of their financial status. The violence he witnessed as a child in Cuba during the revolution and the grief of watching violence claim his brother’s life in Chicago years later shaped his career path.

“Health care is a universal right,” says Asensio, director of trauma clinical research, training, and community affairs and director of trauma surgery and critical care fellowship at the Miller School of Medicine.

Now through the friendship, chivalry, and service of a University of Miami student named Alex Vara, Asensio will have additional resources to help him improve the practice of critical care. Asensio is the inaugural holder of a $2 million endowed chair in trauma surgery funded by the Friends of Ryder Trauma Center, the philanthropy Vara created this year.

“At first, no one took me seriously because I came up with the idea when I was 17. As a college student I had to prove my determination,” says Vara, who volunteers between 10 and 30 hours a week at the trauma center, doing everything from pushing gurneys and restocking rooms to running X-rays and comforting patients.

UM/Jackson volunteers are usually not permitted in the Trauma Resuscitation Unit, but Vara worked his way in by shadowing physicians and persistently making himself known throughout the unit.

“Dr. Asensio and the other physicians and staff have taught me countless procedures and terminology,” Vara says. “But, more importantly, they have taught me compassion, respect, and how to deal with people and families during traumatic circumstances.”

Founded in 1992, Ryder is the only certified level 1 trauma center in Miami-Dade County. Through outreach efforts such as a brochure and Web site, Vara has helped raise more than $160,000 thus far for Friends of Ryder Trauma Center. The endowment for the chair will support translational research, which Asensio says will focus on shock, massive bleeding, and cardiac events. Additional funds raised will support improvements at Ryder, such as renovation of the waiting room.