When Pilar Ortega moved from Miami to Baltimore to pursue her college degree at Johns Hopkins University, she was surprised to learn that she was one of few Hispanic students there. At the same time, she noticed systemic problems impacting the local Latino community around her, and the language barrier standing between this community and their healthcare providers. Doctor Ortega has dedicated herself to the field of medical communication in Spanish since, and in 2017 co-founded the Medical Organization for Latino Advancement (MOLA).
Pilar Ortega was born in Madrid, Spain. At the age of three, her family moved to Miami, Florida, where she remained until moving to Baltimore for college. Growing up in the culturally-rich city of Miami informed Ortega’s identity and commitment to health information access for Spanish-speaking communities. “In addition to my own Spanish heritage, I was raised by a village of diverse Latinos—from Colombia, Cuba, México, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and many others. I feel very protective and indebted to the heterogeneity of each of the beautiful nationalities that supported my earliest growth and enriched my identity as a Hispanic/Latina woman,” she told IQLatino.
An inquisitive and avid reader with many diverse interests, Ortega decided to pursue medicine as a career path because it allowed her to combine many of these passions—from nature, science, and health, to art, writing, philosophy, linguistics, ethics, and social justice. Her activism began during her time at Johns Hopkins, where she participated in and launched grass roots efforts to improve health information access in vulnerable communities and educated her fellow students in how to communicate with and improve healthcare for Spanish-speaking persons. At the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Ortega immediately looked for opportunities to make an impact among Chicago’s Latino community. She worked to research and improve her hospital medical interpreting services and taught a medical Spanish class for her peers. “This soon became a key area of focused study for me, yet I felt I needed more. I did not only want to make an area of study for my own career, but I also wanted to create a community of Latino colleagues that were also interested in collaborating to improve Hispanic health,” she explained. So in 2017, she did just that when she co-founded MOLA.
MOLA is a non-profit association that supports and mentors Latinx health professional students to follow a leadership trajectory in whatever fields they choose. “Each year, we select an amazing cohort of Scholars who receive scholarship support—in large part thanks to the Michael Reese Research and Education Foundation’s generous sponsorship—and conduct a mentored research project on a topic of their choice,” Ortega explained. She calls this program one of the outcomes of MOLA that she is proudest of, because of the legacy of research to action that it inspires in its students, who have gone on to publish peer-reviewed articles, present at national conferences, and create legislative advocacy efforts to improve Latinx health. In the four years since its founding, the organization has grown to include over 600 active Latinx health professional members. Ortega served as President until October of 2020, and currently sits on the Executive Board as Immediate Past President.
Apart from her work with MOLA, Doctor Ortega is an Emergency Physician and Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago Departments of Emergency Medicine and Medical Education, where she directs and teaches the Medical Spanish program for the College of Medicine’s Hispanic Center of Excellence. “Over time, I have come to realize the important role that Emergency Departments play in providing healthcare to the underserved. I have dedicated my academic work to teaching and evaluating doctors’ communication skills with Spanish-speaking patients. This is an area of education and research that by definition requires activism, advocacy, and creativity, since it is a path that has not been well explored. Many people do not know what teaching ‘medical Spanish’ means, why it is important, or how to go about learning or teaching it,” she explained. She has become a trailblazer in the field, publishing books, articles, and creating videos to advocate for patients’ language rights and for positive change in healthcare systems and medical education. In 2018, Doctor Ortega was awarded with Spain’s Royal National Academy of Medicine Award for Health Information, Communication and Dissemination. In 2019, she spoke about scientific communication in the Spanish language at the VIII International Congress of the Spanish Language in Córdoba, Argentina.
To fellow Hispanics interested in pursuing a career in medicine, Doctor Ortega advices embracing who they are as individuals and taking that passion for cultural and language identity to a professional level. For high school and college students, she recommends taking classes that will enhance their professional language skills in languages that are important in the communities they want to serve. “Spanish is by far the most common language spoken in the U.S. besides English, and I see every day the frustration not only from patients but also doctors and other clinicians who cannot communicate or do their job well due to not speaking the same language. The more you can educate and prepare yourself to care for your community, the more this will free you to be an excellent healer and advocate for them!” she said. For those already in the professional arena, she advises letting one’s personal identity influence their work and professional identity. “For me, making who I am as a Hispanic and Spanish-speaking woman part of my career has been instrumental in creating a focused and very productive area of research, education, and patient care. It has allowed me to contribute in a way that is unique, that matches my passion and personal strengths, and provides benefits for my community,” she added.