SANTA ANA, CALIF. — Even though it’s early on a Thursday morning, Dr. Emily Dow moves quickly down the long, narrow hallway of Clinic B at the UCI Family Health Center, wearing the white lab coat of her trade over her slim, 5-foot 2-inch frame, the silver and black stethoscope around her neck.

The mostly Latino patients are starting to fill up the adjacent waiting room, hallway and small exam rooms.

The 47-year-old South Korean-born physician calls the medically underserved Santa Ana community the “third world of Orange County.” Set in a lively neighborhood dotted with small Latino businesses, the clinic provides low-cost quality medical care for the poor. Seventy percent of the patients are Spanish-speaking immigrants. Some 40 percent are without medical insurance and most live below federal poverty levels.

Dow puts in 10-hour days, handling patient care and administrative duties, as well as teaching medical students and residents. Today she’s seeing patients back-to-back all day, with each visit averaging 15 minutes.

“It’s hectic,” says Dow. “Patients flock here. Often very sick, they want to be seen right away.”

Many of these individuals are suffering from so-called “lifestyle” diseases — diabetes, high-blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity — and they acknowledge engaging in risky behaviors like smoking and poor diet with little to no exercise. Dow sees a lot of hepatitis C and liver disease from drug use or drinking.

Dow’s 9:45 a.m. patient is an uninsured Latino woman with high blood pressure and lower back pain that prevent her from holding a job. Dow converses in fluent Spanish in a concerned, professional manner. From previous visits, Dow knows the woman can’t afford expensive tests and drugs, a physical therapist or an orthopedic surgeon. Instead, Dow orders an X-ray, arranges for free medication, shows the woman some back exercises and encourages healthy dietary changes.

Poor patients are unique, Dow says. “You often deal with not only health problems, but psycho-social issues. They are often depressed or stressed because of finances and family conflict, and because they can’t find a job or pay rent.”

They can’t afford all the tests she would like to perform and are often more ill than average, with multiple problems exacerbated by lack of medical care.

“Our patients are not well-informed medically, often lacking middle-class competency skills,” Dow says, adding that because poor patients are so focused on daily survival, they often miss appointments and ignore doctors’ instructions.

“It can be frustrating, but most patients are grateful, delightful people who remind you daily you are filling a need.”

Like the pregnant teen who stopped smoking. “It made my day,” says Dow.

Earlier, Dow recounts, a new Latina patient proclaimed: “You are a woman! You speak Spanish! Can you be my doctor forever?”

“My next patient is another example,” Dow says, emerging from the small, windowless office she shares with another doctor.