NBC Latino
Dr. Elena Rios is much more than a doctor of internal medicine. She says ever since she was a teenager in her hometown of East LA, she thought, “How can we help our Latino community improve?”
For the past 15 years, she been serving as the President and CEO of the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA), representing 45,000 Hispanic physicians in the United States, which aims at improving the health of Hispanics. She also serves as President of NHMA’sNational Hispanic Health Foundation, to direct educational and research activities, while also working on the Campaign Against Obesity, the Commission to End Health Disparities, among a multitude of other causes.
“I’m just trying to understand what ways we can be of service and learn some of the policies that are at the forefront,” says Dr. Rios about the reason she gets involved with so many organizations. “You can make changes that have greater impact if you are at the top of the organization.”
Just last week, Dr. Rios was the keynote speaker at the 2013 Hispanic Healthcare Summit held in New York City — an event for hospital managers, physicians, pharmacists, medical sales professionals, nurses and analysts to discuss how to decrease the ethnic disparities that continue to persist in health, with Hispanics still behind other ethnic groups.
For more go to: http://nbclatino.com/2013/08/13/latina-leaders-from-east-la-to-the-white-house-trying-to-improve-the-health-of-latinos/
