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MAA Board of Directors 2014-15
President mid-late 1980s, global health was a concept not yet woven
into medical training. As someone who identifies with Don
Quixote’s sense of undertaking adventures for noble causes,
I had the desire to make a difference beyond the boundaries
of Westwood.
I am a child of immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador
and the first in my family to graduate from high school.
I grew up learning the value of advocating for the rights of
disenfranchised communities to promote equity. During
my second year of medical school, I acted on my strong
commitment to support population-responsive medical
pipelines by organizing a campaign to obtain donations for
a new medical school in Managua, Nicaragua. The school,
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua (UNAN), was
being built to address the need for more health professionals to
serve the country. I became aware that the new medical school
needed equipment for the students, so I solicited and received
donations of microscopes and teaching slides, as well as a
microtone and materials to make new slides, from UCLA, as
well as from the UCLA departments of pathology and laboratory
medicine and anatomy. The summer between my second and third
years, I hand-delivered the equipment to UNAN and met the dean
of the medical school. It is difficult to put into words the emotions
I felt or the impact that this undertaking, and the support
I received from the UCLA School of Medicine (now the David
Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA), had on me. Certainly, this
project set me on the path I have taken in my professional life.
Fast forward almost three decades, and I’m still promoting
exchange to create positive change. In March 2014, in my role
as founding director of the UCLA Blum Center on Poverty and
Health in Latin America, I returned to Managua to meet with
the current UNAN dean to establish a collaborative relationship
between UNAN and the UCLA Blum Center to build health
and training programs that will benefit the people of Nicaragua,
as well as UCLA trainees. The dean took me by the same mango
tree and the same office I visited 29 years prior. It was a déjà-vu
experience. I feel I have come full circle and I am inspired to
collaborate with colleagues at UCLA and other locations in
the United States, Latin America and beyond. My goal is to
identify and advocate for effective responses in health policy
and practice in order to improve the health and healthcare
in Latin America and in the areas to which those from Latin
America immigrate.
To learn more about the UCLA Blum Center, go to:
blumcenter.ucla.edu Jeannine Rahimian, MD ’00, MBA
Executive Vice President
George M. Rajacich, MD ’79
Vice President
Kathryn “Kay” M. Gardner, MD ’79
Secretary/Treasurer William “Bill” Hastrup, MD ’77
Dr. Neil H. Parker at the Class of 2014 Senior Send-off.
Photo: Todd Cheney/UCLA Photography
2014 Alumnus of the Year
Neil H. Parker, MD (RES ’75, FEL ’78),
senior associate dean for student affairs and graduate
medical education and chair of the Admissions
Committee, has been named the 2014 Medical Alumni
Association Alumnus of the Year. Dr. Parker has been
a member of 40 David Geffen School of Medicine at
UCLA committees. Over the past two decades, he has
served on 10 UC system-wide committees and task
forces, including the Graduate Medical Education
Committee and University-wide Health Planning
Committee, where he served as chair for a decade.
He has dedicated his career to enhancing the education
of UCLA medical students, residents and postdoctoral
fellows. More than 15,000 of UCLA’s medical alumni
have benefited from his blend of compassion, humor,
passion and intelligence.
U MAGAZINE
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