Dr Chang was born in Taiwan before spending most of his childhood in Boston. He attended Boston University and received his bachelors degree in biochemistry and molecular biology with a minor in sociology, then stayed at BU to pursue his medical degree. He then moved to the Bronx for internal medicine residency training because of his interest in treating underserved patient populations. He was finally able to realize his dream of living in California when he was accepted for nephrology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. His ability to communicate and educate both patients and other medical providers earned him the respect of the UCSF Internal Medicine Department in his first year of training as they named him the nephrology fellow of the year. While he initially planned on becoming a physician-scientist, Dr Chang ultimately realized that his true interest in medicine was in direct patient care, and so he left a career in laboratory science to join Chabot Nephrology as a full-time clinician.