Congratulations to the HSHPS 2004-2005 Fellows!

This year’s fellows represent the University of California San Francisco-Fresno and Columbia University School of Physicians and Surgeons!

Silvia Amesty, Alex Montero, and Rene Salazar were selected after a highly competitive application process to receive a one-year $45,000 fellowship from Hispanic Serving Health Professions Schools. During the 2004-2005 academic year, each fellow will conduct an individual research project with a senior researcher at his/her respective institution.  For more information about the 2004-2005 fellows, please see below.
 

Silvia Amesty, MD, MPH, MSEd, is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Assistant Director of Research at the Center for Family Medicine, Columbia University. She was educated at the University of Pennsylvania (BA, 1984, MSEd, 1986), Temple University (MD, 1997), and Columbia University (MPH, 2001). She is a board certified Family Medicine physician, having received her training at Beth Israel Medical Center/The Institute for Urban Family Health in New York City.

After working as a psychotherapist/family therapist in the Latino community and directing a mental health clinic for many years, Dr. Amesty returned to school to complete her degree in Medicine. She completed her residency in Family Medicine and a Research Fellowship in Family Medicine at Columbia University, under the guidance of Drs. Daria Boccher-Lattimore and Vincent Silenzio. During her fellowship year Dr. Amesty’s interests focused on issues related to health disparities in the Latino community. Her master’s thesis was on recruitment of Latinos for research; she has also explored structural aspects of physical activity behavior and its impact on diseases such as diabetes. She has a strong interest in combining her experiences as a family therapist trained in Systems theory, as a physician, and as a public health representative. She believes this provides her with a holistic framework to tackle problems in our health care system, such as access and disparity issues. Dr. Amesty has focused her clinical care on the adolescent patient population; she believes that all her experiences come together naturally in treating the adolescent patient.

Dr. Amesty has done numerous national and international presentations on physical activity and health in Latinos in the U.S. She was recently awarded the HSHPS fellowship to investigate the impact of immigration and environment on self-care behaviors and diabetes in Latinos. Dr. Amesty has a special interest on health disparities as a human rights issue, and has received training in health and human rights at Harvard School of Public Health/Francois Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.

Dr. Amesty teaches family medicine residents at Columbia University and runs an adolescent clinic at the Family Health Center.

Rene Salazar, MD

Rene Salazar, MD, a native of South Texas, is a graduate of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Medicine. Dr. Salazar completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. After residency, Dr. Salazar completed a Health Disparities Research Fellowship through the Division of General Internal Medicine and the Medical Effectiveness Research Center for Diverse Populations at UCSF. During this fellowship, Dr. Salazar began to explore his interest in cancer screening in minority populations, more specifically, colorectal cancer in Latinos. Dr. Salazar completed an analysis exploring the effect of culture and fatalism on colorectal cancer screening in Latino men and women. The results of this work were presented at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Salazar also completed an analysis of rates and predictors of breast and cervical cancer screening in a multi-ethnic population of elderly women at UCSF. The results of this work were presented at the 27th Annual Meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine.

Dr. Salazar joined the Division of General Internal Medicine at UCSF in 2002. Dr. Salazar currently is a co-investigator of an American Cancer Society sponsored project to develop and test culturally tailored interventions to enhance colorectal cancer screening in minority populations. He is currently a 2004-05 Hispanic Serving Health Professions Schools Fellow. Through this fellowship, Dr. Salazar is establishing a cultural competency curriculum for Internal Medicine Primary Care Residents. Additionally, Dr. Salazar continues his work on evaluating the impact of fatalism on colorectal cancer screening in Latinos through his current project which involves creating an instrument to adequately measure this complex construct in Latinos. In addition to his busy research career, Dr. Salazar is involved in numerous clinical and teaching activities. Dr. Salazar has a busy General Internal Medicine Clinic Practice, which allows Dr. Salazar to provide care to the Latino community of San Francisco. He also teaches Internal Medicine residents in a busy resident clinic practice and works closely with medical students in various clinical settings.

Dr. Salazar is a volunteer at the UCSF Medical Student Homeless Clinic, working with first and second year medical students providing free care the homeless population of San Francisco. He is also the newly appointed clinic advisor to the Clinica Martin-Baro, a student-run clinic providing free care to the Latino community of San Francisco.