This year, the Latino Medical Student Association of the Northeast (LMSA NE) annual conference will be held in person from Friday, January 27 to Sunday, January 29 at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD.
Titled “A Future for All: Highlighting Latino Innovation, Service and Leadership in Medicine,” the 50th regional conference seeks to honor individuals who have paved the way for all Latinos in medicine. To make this possible, the event will feature more than 40 activities, including a research symposium, workshops, oral presentations, networking opportunities, panels, faculty speakers, and an exhibitor fair.
More than 500 medical students, medical students and professors from the 40 medical schools that are part of the association are expected to attend.
The prestigious Mexican-American neurosurgeon Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa will be the keynote speaker at the event on Saturday afternoon. Quiñones-Hinojosa is also known for having been chief of the Department of Neurological Surgery at Mayo Clinic’s Florida campus and for leading research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to find a cure for brain cancer.
Dr. Mario Molina and Dr. John Paul Sánchez will also be keynote speakers, while Dr. Roy Zielgelstein, Dr. Shari Martin Lawson, and Dr. Elena Ríos will deliver welcoming remarks.
According to LMSA NE Co-Director Jordan Juárez, LMSA has been helping medical and pre-medical students of Latino and Hispanic descent since 1972. As part of its mission, the non-profit organization was created with the purpose of representing, supporting, educate and unify Latino medical students in the United States.
Currently, 20% of the US population is Latino or Hispanic. However, only 6% of the medical community identifies as Latino or Hispanic. For Juárez, “this is not enough.”
About 43% of Hispanic or Latino physicians were born in the US, 21% in South America, 9% in Puerto Rico, 9% in Cuba, 8% in Mexico, and 5% in the rest of Central America. .
Hispanic students accounted for 12.7% of enrollment, up from 12.0% in 2020. The encouraging numbers for Hispanic and Black students among first-year medical students are a positive note, but it would need to be the beginning of a big trend to reverse a problem in physician representation that has been around for generations.
“Through events like our annual Northeast Regional Conference, we hope to inspire the next generation of Latino/Hispanic medical leaders,” concluded Juárez.
For more information about the event, click here.