Episode 25: Dr. Valeria Valbuena
Dr. Valeria Valbuena is a General Surgery resident at the University of Michigan. Originally from Colombia, she completed her undergraduate education starting in her local community college, the State College of Florida. She obtained a B.A in Biochemistry from the New College of Florida and her medical degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago where she was an active member and leader of the Latino Medical Student Association. Valeria's research interests include workforce diversity with a focus on medicine and surgery, healthcare disparities, community-based intervention to increase access to safe surgery, and organ donation and transplantation in minority populations. She was selected as part of the 2020-2022 cohort of the National Clinician Scholars Program where she will be completing her Academic Development Time while pursuing a Master's Degree in Health & Healthcare Research Dr. Valbuena is the program lead for the LEAGUES Fellowship, a pipeline program designed for medical students interested in the intersection of racial and gender equity and surgery. As the Resident Life Director of Recruitment at Michigan Surgery, she hopes to redesign the surgical residency selection process focusing on holistic review of applications with the goal of making surgical training accessible to candidates of all backgrounds.