Ligia Peralta

Last updated

Ligia Peralta (born 1961) is a Dominican-born doctor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine in Maryland. Her research focuses on HIV and the transmission of HIV in adolescents, specifically those from under-served communities.

Contents

Peralta has served in several medical organizations and advisory boards, including the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), [1] the Society for Pediatric Research, [2] the Association for Academic Minority Physicians, [2] the Society of Adolescent Medicine, [2] and the Advisory Board of the National Hispanic Medical Association, [2] among others.

Early life, education, and career

Peralta was born in 1961 in the Dominican Republic. Her father, Ruben Peralta, was a surgeon in the United States and Dominican Republic, having held fellowships at institutions such as Harvard Medical School, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña. [3] As a child, Peralta would accompany her father to remote locations on the island to administer free medical screenings and vaccinations. [4] These experiences with her father that sparked her love and commitment of medicine and her community. [5]

In 1985, Peralta graduated from Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña with her M.D.From there, she completed her residency at the Yale-New Haven Waterbury Hospital Health Center and University of Connecticut from 1987 - 1990. [6] [7] Upon graduation from residency, Peralta was granted a fellowship at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Here, she worked with Dr. Felix Heald, who founded the University of Maryland's adolescent medicine program.

Peralta was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 2011. [8]

Currently she is Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, Chief Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, and Director of the Adolescent HIV Program of the Department of Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine. [9]

Community service

Peralta developed the One Stop Shopping program, where adolescents can receive several different health services in one location; services include specialized exams, dental care, free HIV testing and counseling, and sex and substance abuse counseling. Peralta currently runs Star Track, a clinic in Baltimore at the University of Maryland Medical campus. [10] [7] In addition to her clinic, Peralta also helped establish the Health on the Boards clinic in Ocean City, Maryland, as well as a not-for-profit organization dedicated to her father called Casa Ruben, and the first Spanish Mini Medical school to assist immigrants in the medical field re-enter medicine in the United States. [2]

Alongside her work in the United States, Peralta has also helped address the issue of HIV internationally. She has worked in Latin America, Thailand, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Croatia, Tunisia, and South Africa. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS</span>

The Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) advises the White House and the Secretary of Health and Human Services on the US government's response to the AIDS epidemic. The commission was formed by President Bill Clinton in 1995 and each president since has renewed the council's charter.

Mariano Lebrón Saviñón was a Dominican author of the 20th century. One of the founders of the second private university in the Dominican Republic, he named it the Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña, also writing its anthem. He was born on August 3, 1922, in Santo Domingo, the son of a Spanish immigrant, José Lebrón Morales, and a Dominican mother, Rosa Cándida Saviñón Pérez, of Canarian descent. He attended primary and secondary education in Santo Domingo. He received his medical degree at the University of Santo Domingo in 1946, and in 1949 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Aronson</span> American physician

Jane Aronson, D.O. is an osteopathic physician, with expertise in pediatric infectious diseases and adoption medicine.

Catherine D. DeAngelis is the first woman and the first pediatrician to become editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). She has also edited several additional medical journals. Before assuming the editor's position at JAMA in 2000, DeAngelis was a professor and Vice Dean of Faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnes Binagwaho</span> Rwandan pediatrician

Agnes Binagwaho is a Rwandan Politian, pediatrician and co-founder and the former vice chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity (2017-2022). In 1996, she returned to Rwanda where she provided clinical care in the public sector as well as held many positions including the position of Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Health of Rwanda from October 2008 until May 2011 and Minister of Health from May 2011 until July 2016. She has been a professor of global health delivery practice since 2016 and a professor of pediatrics since 2017 at the University of Global Health Equity. She resides in Kigali.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus</span> American licensed psychologist

Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor with the University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. Rotheram is the professor-in-residence in the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She is the Director of the Global Center for Children and Families at UCLA and the former director of the Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauren V. Wood</span> American allergist, immunologist

Lauren V. Wood is an American allergist, immunologist, and staff physician at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, where she has served as a principal investigator. She is known for conducting studies of vaccines for cancer, Human papillomavirus (HPV), Hepatitis C, and HIV especially for use with children, teens and young adults. She holds the rank of captain in the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS).

Lucille C. Norville Perez is an American physician known for her work in substance abuse and HIV/AIDS prevention.

Terri H. Finkel is an American pediatric rheumatologist and immunologist who is the Children's Foundation of Memphis Endowed Chair and tenured professor of pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Previously, she was the pediatrician-in-chief, chair of pediatrics and chief scientific officer at Nemours Children's Hospital. She is known for her research into autoimmunity, AIDS, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and cancer. Her work has been recognized in more than 200 publications, 10 U.S. patents, and 4 licensed technologies. Finkel has been placed in the top one percent of American pediatric rheumatologists by U.S. News & World Report. Her numerous honors include being named among America's Top Doctors by Castle Connolly every year since 2011 and induction into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.

Flossie Cohen (1925–2004) was an Indian-born pediatric immunologist who spent most of her career at the Children's Hospital of Michigan. She was also a professor at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Hein</span>

Dr. Karen Hein is a pediatrician and health policy expert who founded the first comprehensive HIV/AIDS program for adolescents in the world.

Sabrina Bakeera Kitaka, commonly known as Sabrina Kitaka, is a Ugandan physician, pediatrician, pediatric infectious diseases specialist and academic, who serves as a senior lecturer in the Department of Pediatrics at Makerere University School of Medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brigid Leventhal</span> British-American pediatric oncologist

Brigid Gray Leventhal was a British-American pediatric oncologist. She was the first director of the Pediatric Oncology Division at Johns Hopkins University, a position she held from 1976 to 1984. She was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nadia Dowshen</span> American pediatrician

Nadia Lauren Dowshen is an American pediatrician and adolescent medicine physician. She specializes in the care of youth living with HIV infection and medical care to transgender and gender-diverse youth. Dowshen researches health inequality, access to care, and promoting resilience in LGBT youth. As an associate professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, she is also the medical director and co-founder of the Gender and Sexuality Development Clinic.

Crystal C. Watkins Johansson is an American neuroscientist and psychiatrist and associate professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as well as the director of the Sheppard Pratt Memory Clinic in Neuropsychiatry in Baltimore, Maryland. Johansson was the first Black female Meyerhoff Scholar to obtain an MD/PhD from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. During her MD/PhD she developed a novel treatment for gastrointestinal in patients with diabetes that led to a patent for a pharmacological compound in 2000. Johansson is a practicing neuropsychiatrist with a focus on geriatric psychiatry and she conducts brain imaging research as well as research on cancer in African American women.

Jasmine R. Marcelin is a Caribbean-American infectious disease physician and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Marcelin is also the Associate Medical Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program and as well as the Co-Director of Digital Innovation and Social Media Strategy at UNMC. Marcelin is dedicated to advancing diversity, inclusion, and equity in her communities and is a founding member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America Inclusion, Diversity, Access & Equity Taskforce. Marcelin uses social media to advance medicine, diversity, and patient advocacy and has published articles on how to effectively use social media for these purposes.

Prasanna Nair is an Indian-born doctor working in the United States. She works in primary health care with a specialty in pediatric endocrinology

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tlaleng Mofokeng</span> South African physician

Tlaleng Mofokeng is a South African physician who is the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. She campaigns for universal health access and HIV care. She was named one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2021.

Mary Goretti Boland, MSN, RN, FAAN is a Pediatric Nurse and Doctor of Public Health, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She is nationally known for her work developing innovative healthcare programs for underserved children with HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases. In 1978, Boland staffed an innovative mobile health screening van for the Ironbound Community Health Project in Newark, New Jersey. She became director of the AIDS program at Children's Hospital of New Jersey and served as the coordinator for the Children's AIDS program (CHAP) at United Hospitals Medical Center in Newark. She served on the AIDS Advisory Committee in New Jersey and the National AIDS Advisory Committee. The United States Department of Health and Human Services gave her an award for her work in pediatric AIDS/HIV treatment.

Maya Green is the Chief Medical Officer at Chicago’s Howard Brown Health and the founder of HIV Real Talk which is a community based HIV screening and prevention program. Green was an educator, in both private and public schools, before getting her medical training. She also serves on the AMA-LGBT Medical Advisory Committee.

References

  1. Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. (2017, July). Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA)62nd Meeting. https://hivgov-prod-v3.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/PACHA-Aug-2017-full-council-summary.pdf
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Ligia Peralta, MSA SC 3520-15535". msa.maryland.gov. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
  3. Ruben Peralta. (n.d.). ResearchGate. Retrieved May 9, 2021, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ruben-Peralta-4
  4. "Ligia Peralta, MD". Maryland Women's Heritage Center. 2018-01-01. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
  5. Avendano, A. (2015, December 7). Doctora Peralta: “Podemos vencer al Sida.” Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/eltiempolatino/doctora-peralta-podemos-vencer-al-sida/2015/12/07/6f6045d2-9d07-11e5-8728-1af6af208198_story.html
  6. "Dr. Ligia Peralta, MD – Baltimore, MD | Pediatrics on Doximity". Doximity. Retrieved 2021-05-09.
  7. 1 2 Governor’s Maryland Commission for Women. (2011). DR. LIGIA PERALTA INDUCTED TO MARYLAND WOMEN’S HALL OF FAME.
  8. "Biographies - Maryland Women's Hall of Fame". msa.maryland.gov. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  9. Biography. Ligia Peralta, M.D. Maryland Women's Hall of Fame. Retrieved July 30, 2021
  10. Frazier, L. (2000, July 16). Who's Afraid of AIDS?: Black Youths Leading In New HIV Cases, but Risk-Taking Continue. The Washington Post, C1A.