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 * Diversity and Inclusion


CELEBRATING 10 HISPANIC PIONEERS IN MEDICINE

Stacy Weiner, Senior Staff Writer
September 17, 2020


THESE INSPIRING LEADERS LAUNCHED ADVANCES IN MEDICINE AND RESEARCH THAT LED TO
NOBEL PRIZES, LIFE-CHANGING CURES, AND BETTER CARE FOR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. WE
SHARE THEIR INCREDIBLE STORIES.


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Photos courtesy: Various, see images below.

One solved the mystery of yellow fever, another fought sterilization abuse, and
a third delved deep into human genes. Still others reenvisioned addiction,
served as U.S. surgeon general, even blasted into space. In honor of National
Hispanic Heritage Month, we share the outstanding stories of men and women who
improved health across the nation and around the world.


CARLOS JUAN FINLAY, MD (1833-1915): SOLVING THE YELLOW FEVER MYSTERY

National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

Yellow fever is a horrible disease, causing such terrifying symptoms as bleeding
from the mouth, vomiting, and organ failure. By the late 1800s, intermittent
outbreaks had taken some 150,000 lives in the United States, and in Cuba, where
Carlos Finlay was born, it was a near-constant terror.

Finlay's dogged efforts would help change that.

After graduating from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
in 1855, Finlay was drawn to numerous topics, but he found none so compelling as
exploring the cause of yellow fever.

At the time, experts thought they knew the culprit: filth in the air or on
clothing. Finlay, on the other hand, noticed intriguing correlations between
yellow fever epidemics and increases in the mosquito population. In 1881, he
presented his mosquitos-as-vectors theory to scientific conferences in Havana
and Washington, D.C. — and was met with ridicule.

In 1898, the United States wrested Cuba from Spain in the Spanish-American War,
but its troops suffered more deaths from infectious diseases than from combat.
Desperate, the U.S. Army turned to Finlay for help and was able to greatly
reduce outbreaks by applying some of his ideas about mosquito control, such as
destroying larvae in stagnant water.

Finlay’s insights enabled the completion of the Panama Canal, which had been
disrupted repeatedly by outbreaks. William Gorgas, MD, who headed public health
efforts there and would later serve as U.S. surgeon general, expressed great
admiration for Finlay’s thinking. In fact, he called it “the best piece of
logical reasoning that can be found in medicine anywhere."


JOSÉ CELSO BARBOSA, MD (1857-1921): AN INDEPENDENT PUERTO RICAN

U-M Medical School 1880 Class Album, Bentley Historical Library, University of
Michigan

José Celso Barbosa faced discrimination more than once in his lifetime. But the
same determination that propelled him past those obstacles allowed him to help
countless others.

In 1875, encouraged by his aunt, “Mama Lucia,” Barbosa left Puerto Rico for New
York City to further his education. A brush with pneumonia there spurred his
interest in medicine, but admissions officials at Columbia University’s College
of Physicians and Surgeons rejected his application.

The letter refusing him read, “At a faculty meeting held last night it was
decided not to receive students of color.”

Barbosa was undeterred. In 1880, he graduated with honors from the University of
Michigan as the first Puerto Rican to receive a medical degree in the United
States.

Barbosa went on to care for soldiers during the Spanish-American War through the
Red Cross and to treat many poor patients across Puerto Rico. Barbosa even
articulated a need for employer-based health care insurance, which was a radical
idea at the time.

Later in his career, Barbosa founded a party that urged U.S. statehood for the
island. For that leadership, Barbosa has been dubbed the “father of the Puerto
Rican statehood movement.”


SEVERO OCHOA, MD (1905-1993): UNRAVELING RNA

Wikimedia Commons

Severo Ochoa’s interest in biology was sparked by his idol, Nobel Prize-winning
neuroscientist and fellow Spaniard Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Decades later, Ochoa
would himself enter the halls of Nobel fame.

Ochoa graduated from the University of Madrid’s medical school in 1929 and then
pursued cutting-edge research in several different countries. In 1942, he took a
position at the New York University (NYU) College of Medicine, where he remained
for more than 30 years.

Ochoa’s resume spans several domains of biochemistry and molecular biology, from
photosynthesis to vitamin B’s function in the body. It has been said that in
1931, Ochoa fell in love twice: with his future wife and with the study of
enzymes.

Ochoa’s discovery of an enzyme that can synthesize ribonucleic acid was a vital
advance in the breaking of the human genetic code. In recognition of his work,
in 1959 he became the first Hispanic American to win the Nobel Prize in
physiology or medicine.

In accepting the prize, Ochoa expressed gratitude for his mentors, students, and
adopted country. But mostly he lauded science’s place in elucidating fundamental
questions. Though “we may never find the clue to the nature or the meaning of
life,” he said, “we may look forward with confidence and anticipation to a much
better comprehension of many of its riddles.”


ILDAURA MURILLO-ROHDE, PHD, RN (1920-2010): CHANGING THE FACE OF NURSING

National Association of Hispanic Nurses

“The Hispanic whirlwind” — that’s what Ildaura Murillo-Rohde was dubbed for her
work as a powerhouse advocate, nurse, therapist, and educator.

Born to a family of health professionals in Panama, Murillo-Rohde studied
nursing at the Medical and Surgical Hospital School of Nursing in San Antonio,
Texas, where she was dismayed by how few Hispanic nurses were available to serve
a large Hispanic population. After graduating in 1948, she went on to pursue
several other degrees in education and psychiatric nursing, including a PhD from
NYU in 1971.

Over her career, Murillo-Rohde wrote about a broad range of issues from single
parenthood to same-sex couples. She also reached several professional heights,
including becoming the first Hispanic dean of nursing at NYU.

But one of her greatest achievements was creating the National Association of
Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) in 1975. She felt strongly that the country needed an
organization to attract Hispanic people to nursing as well as to support their
unique concerns and those of the communities they served.

“I saw that I was the only Hispanic nurse who was going to Washington to work
with the federal government, review research and education grants, etc.,”
Murillo-Rohde later noted. “I looked behind me and thought: ‘Where are my
people?’”

For her creation of NAHN and numerous other leadership roles, the American
Academy of Nursing named Murillo-Rohde one of their living legends in 1994.


HELEN RODRÍGUEZ-TRÍAS, MD (1929-2001): FIGHTING STERILIZATION ABUSE

National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

From caring for low-income children in the South Bronx in New York City to
establishing appropriate treatment for HIV and/or AIDS patients in New York
state and promoting women’s health around the world, Helen Rodríguez-Trías was
an outspoken activist and pioneering public health leader.

In 1970, a decade after graduating from the University of Puerto Rico School of
Medicine, Rodríguez-Trías began championing quality care and cultural awareness
for minority populations at the Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, where she became
head of pediatrics.

One issue of great concern to her throughout the 1970s was government-led
programs that coerced women, including minority women and those with physical
disabilities, to undergo sterilization. Rodríguez-Trías went on to co-found the
Campaign to End Sterilization Abuse, which led to strict federal guidelines for
consent in 1979.

In the 1980s, she focused on helping mothers and children suffering from HIV
and/or AIDS, heading the New York State Department of Health’s AIDS Institute.
There, she helped establish standards of care that became a model for the whole
country.

In 1993, Rodríguez-Trías became the first Latina to preside over the American
Public Health Association, where she used her position to promote health equity
and women’s rights.

Toward the end of her career, Rodríguez-Trías co-directed the Pacific Institute
for Women’s Health, where she bolstered women’s health in Latin America, Africa,
and elsewhere. Before her death, she articulated an intense wish: the global
recognition “that no one is going to have quality of life unless we support
everyone’s quality of life.”


JULIO FRENK, MD (1953-): TOWARD WORLDWIDE WELL-BEING

University of Miami

Julio Frenk was raised to believe in giving back.

When his grandparents fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Mexico offered a safe
haven. “The generosity and kindness of strangers in a foreign country made my
life, and my family’s life, possible,” he said. “Studying medicine, public
health, and education has given me the opportunity to try and leave this world
better than I found it.”

Frenk now presides over the University of Miami — the first Hispanic person to
do so — and is recognized as an eminent authority on global health.

Among his public service roles was serving as Mexico’s Minister of Health in the
early 2000s. In that position, he expanded health care to more than 55 million
previously uninsured people.

Frenk also served as dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health from
2009 to 2015. There, he encouraged faculty and students to address what he
identified as the world’s greatest health threats: poverty and humanitarian
crises, failing health systems, social and environmental dangers — and
pandemics.

In all his work, Frenk has been guided by the belief that evidence should
underpin policy.

In receiving the Frank A. Calderone Prize, public health’s most prestigious
honor, he said: “We become exemplary as we uphold the value of basing decisions
on rigorous evidence, rather than ideological prejudice, and as we reaffirm our
commitment to the pursuit of truth, no matter how complex and contradictory it
may be.”


JANE DELGADO, PHD (1953-): EMPOWERING MILLIONS

Robin Weinstein/SUNY New Paltz

Jane Delgado’s knack for listening to and helping others was already clear in
the fifth grade. That’s when a teacher recommended that she pursue a career in
psychology.

Delgado did go on to become a psychologist — but she also battled racial and
ethnic inequities, taught countless people how to care for their health, and led
the National Alliance for Hispanic Health (NAHH) as its first woman president.

Early in her career, Delgado worked at promoting minority health at the
Department of Health and Human Services. There, she made key contributions to
the first U.S. effort to plumb health disparities, the landmark 1985 Report of
the Secretary’s Task Force on Black and Minority Health.

That same year, Delgado took the helm of the organization that would become the
NAHH, where she still serves decades later. Today, the association’s members
provide services to some 100 million people annually, with projects ranging from
smoking cessation programs to outreach promoting Hispanic participation in
clinical trials and a recent bilingual campaign on COVID-19 precautions.

Delgado has also produced more than a dozen health-related books. Among them is
the groundbreaking Salud: The Latina Guide to Total Health, first published in
1997, which encouraged women to focus on self-care.

Years after she headed off to college on her own — her Cuban-born mother worked
in a factory and couldn’t afford time off — Delgado gave the commencement speech
at her alma mater, the State University of New York at New Paltz. In her speech
there, she said, “For me, living a good life is about one thing, making a
positive difference in the lives of others.”


ANTONIA NOVELLO, MD (1944-): FIGHTING FOR THE VULNERABLE

National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

When Antonia Novello became U.S. surgeon general in 1990, her name was etched in
two history books: one for Hispanic people and one for women.

As a child in Puerto Rico, Novello suffered from a congenital digestive
condition that her family could barely afford to treat. That experience
motivated her to study medicine and ensure that care was available to all.

After earning her medical degree from the University of Puerto Rico, Novello
pursued pediatrics for a while but found the field too heart-wrenching. “When
the pediatrician cries as much as the parents do, then you know it’s time to get
out,” she said. Instead, she pursued a career in public health, working her way
up at the National Institutes of Health for decades and eventually catching the
attention of the White House.

As surgeon general, Novello focused on protecting the young and the vulnerable,
addressing such issues as underage drinking and cigarette ads that targeted
children.

Although Novello experienced a dark moment in 2009 when she faced claims of
mishandling funds, she has been widely lauded for her work battling health
inequities among the poor and minority groups.

Novello noted the powerful call she felt to help others. “Service is the rent
that you pay for living,” she said at the Northwestern University Feinberg
School of Medicine in 2016.


NORA VOLKOW, MD (1956-): INSIGHTS INTO ADDICTION

National Institute of Drug Addiction, National Institutes of Health

For decades, drug abuse was typically seen as a sign of personal weakness. But
addiction is now understood as a brain disease, thanks largely to Nora Volkow’s
creativity inside the laboratory and her powerful messaging outside of it.

A prolific researcher — she has published more than 780 peer-reviewed papers —
Volkow has led the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 2003.

Volkow’s journey into addiction science began as a medical student in Mexico,
where she first saw patients harmed by alcohol and drug use, from cirrhosis
patients to drunk-driving victims. It bothered her deeply that “we would treat
them, but we never addressed the cause that brought them there,” she said.

In 1981, Volkow went to New York University for her residency in psychiatry,
lured by access to a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner. As someone who
thought endlessly about thinking, she says, she “went wild” over the possibility
of glimpsing the brain’s hidden processes.

Over the decades, in addition to her addiction work, Volkow would go on to make
contributions to the science of imaging as well as to such diverse topics as the
neurobiology of obesity and the effects of cell phones on brain metabolism.

Volkow’s work on addiction is also personal. A beloved uncle was ostracized
because of his alcoholism, and her grandfather had been an alcoholic and had
died by suicide. “Drug addiction is a disease,” she says.


SERENA AUÑÓN-CHANCELLOR, MD (1976-): FROM SPACE TO COVID-19 WARDS

NASA/Expedition 56 Crew

As a NASA astronaut, Serena Auñón-Chancellor had the opportunity to spend days
on the bottom of the ocean and hurtle through space high above the Earth. But
treating patients during the COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on her as
well.

Auñón-Chancellor, the first Hispanic physician to travel to space, spent six
months in 2018 conducting research aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Her work there included conducting experiments related to Parkinson’s disease
and cancer. “What people don’t realize is that … 70% of that [research] is to
specifically benefit health down here,” she said.

Auñón-Chancellor fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut in 2011.
Before that, she completed medical school at the McGovern Medical School at the
University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston in 2001 and a master’s
degree in public health at the university’s Medical Branch at Galveston in 2007.

Since completing her flight mission, Auñón-Chancellor has been treating patients
and training internal medicine residents at LSU Health Sciences Center in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana.

Auñón-Chancellor says her time aboard the ISS taught her many invaluable
lessons, including two that have been essential during the COVID-19 pandemic:
self-care and teamwork. Caring for coronavirus patients and traveling to space
were extreme challenges, but in both, she felt strongly that she was “performing
a tremendous service and fulfilling a sense of purpose.”


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Stacy Weiner, Senior Staff Writer


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