Part 2: Interview with Dr. Elena Rios, President, National Hispanic Medical Association and the National Hispanic Health Foundation( continued)
the topic. The Partnership for Medicaid was started by the community health centers and medical provider organizations. The National Hispanic Leadership agenda is made up of the 40 top Hispanic organizations that advocate for our communities. They may not be healthcare focused, but jobs, education, and environmental health are all important. We’ re working together to have a voice about the quality of life for the Hispanic community. And other coalitions are based on the diabetes efforts, or the heart disease efforts, or the HIV efforts.
We work with the AAMC. Dr. Scott Allen is the AAMC president, and Dr. David Acosta runs the office committed to equity, diversity, & inclusion initiatives. We work with the Congress members themselves, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Caucus.
Together, they are called the Tri-Caucus. And they’ re all working together on certain healthcare and mental healthcare bills.
We started to develop our leadership training programs in 1999 with the NHS. Our first national leadership fellowship programs were to identify doctors who were interested in becoming those types of champions, working with policymakers, and learning how to how to present policy papers to congressional staff, and how to how to develop their leadership skills so that they can be go on to higher positions within their careers. We have doctors that have gone on to be part of state health departments, federal health departments, or medical schools at the Deans’ level; higher level decision-making positions at institutions to represent the needs of the underrepresented doctors and make systematic changes that improve the whole system.
Part 3: Is there a Hispanic Counterpart to Dr. Charles R. Drew? Meet a Few Leaders That Are Excellent Professional Role Models
Here are some examples of current leaders, followed by quotes from these notables. In academic medicine, Dr. Alicia Fernandez is Director of the Latino Center of Excellence at UCSF, and Associate Dean of Population Health and Health Equity. Her career work has been on the communication skills needed to care for Latinx populations. She is a member
Dr. Alicia Fernandez of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators, a recipient of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Professorship Award in Medical Humanism, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and has served on the Council of the Society of General Internal
Medicine. Dr. Fernandez has served as an advisor on health disparities to numerous national organizations.
She received a BA from Yale and her MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Fernandez was appointed as a member of the PCORI Board of Governors by the Comptroller General of the US in February 2014. In September 2020, she was reappointed for a second term that expires in September 2026.
Quote:“ our health care system must come halfway through offering interpreter services and training doctors to use them. There must be a minimum standard. I personally believe that a hospitalized patient should be able to talk to his or her doctor once a day. This is where humility and compassion and professionalism all come together.”
Dr. Susana Morales is Co- Director of The Center for Multicultural and Minority Health at Cornell Medical College. She has been a pioneer on many medical education initiatives that are focused on Latino health. She served as a member of the governing Council of the Society
Dr. Susana Morales
of General Internal Medicine from 2000-2003, was a member of the Commonwealth Fund’ s“ Bettering the Health of Minority Americans” Advisory Board. She is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Columbia University Institute on Medicine as a Profession Physician Advocacy Fellowship, as well as a member of the Boards of Directors of Public Health Solutions, the United Hospital Fund, and of the Women’ s Housing and Economic Development Corporation.
She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the J. James Smith Memorial Award presented annually by the New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell house staff to a member of the attending staff who exemplifies the qualities of Teacher, Scholar, and Physician; and of the National Medical Fellowships Community Service
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 12