Latinx Advisory Council

Maria Rojas, MD, MPH
Internal Medicine and Nephrology, Wenatchee
Chair
Dr. Rojas is board certified in internal medicine and nephrology. Born and raised in Colombia, where she went to medical school at the University of El Rosario, Dr. Rojas worked for 10 years as an emergency room physician, director of the tuberculosis program, and chief medical officer for the subsidized regimen where she served a large internally displaced population. She received a master’s in public health and international health from the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam with a thesis on psychosocial impact of forced displacement in Colombia. She moved to the United States in 2004 to start an internal medicine residency at Saint Elizabeth’s Community Hospital, affiliated with Tufts University in Boston, and a nephrology, hypertension and transplantation fellowship at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She has worked as an internist and nephrologist in Rochester, New York; Powell River, British Columbia; Bellingham; and most recently as a nephrologist in Wenatchee. She has collaborated with grassroots movements in Wenatchee to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the local Latinx population. She strongly believes in a patient-centered approach to health care and the role of physicians as advocates to decrease health care disparities in minorities. She is currently part of WSMA's Latinx Advisory Council where she hopes to have the opportunity for statewide networking with Latinx physicians to participate in a needs assessment of Washington state Latinx population and to work toward equitable health care resource allocation. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her husband, daughter, and pets, and hiking, traveling, reading, and dancing to Latin music.

Mabel Bodell, MD
Nephrology, Wenatchee
Dr. Bodell, also known as “La Doctora Mabel,” was born in Argentina and moved to Washington in 2014 after spending time on the East Coast. Currently, she works as a nephrologist in the Wenatchee area and her interests include health and welfare of the entire community. She currently serves as co-chair of the Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Council at Confluence Health and is the recipient of several awards, including the Golden Tennis Shoe Award from Sen. Patty Murray.

Enrique Enguidanos, MD
Emergency Medicine, Community Based Coordination Solutions
Dr. Enguidanos has been practicing emergency medicine in the Puget Sound region for more than 20 years. He has served in several leadership roles during this period, including as emergency department medical director and medical staff president at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett; physician lead of the Providence Health System Emergency Medicine Clinical Decision Team; president of the Washington Chapter of the American College of Emergency Medicine; and WSMA board Member. He currently serves as CEO of Community Based Coordination Solutions.

Jose Carlos Flores-Rodarte, MD
Family medicine, University of Washington, Seattle
Dr. Flores-Rodarte was born in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and grew up on the Central Coast of California. He studied philosophy and biological sciences at the University of California, Irvine before earning his MD and MPH with a focus in global health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. He is currently chief resident at the University of Washington’s Family Medicine Residency Program and has interests in serving Spanish-speaking underserved populations, as well as health policy and health care administration.

Adriana Linares, MD
Family Practice, PeaceHealth Family Medicine Southwest
Vancouver, Washington
Dr. Linares was born in Colombia and moved to the United States to pursue public health education. She earned a masters and doctorate in public health from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. She moved to Brooklyn, New York, to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship related to obesity and at the same time completed her residency in family Medicine. She has special interest in working with women and underrepresented communities. She has been a faculty member for the last 16 years and currently she is the associate program director of the PeaceHealth Family Medicine Southwest in Vancouver, Washington. She is pursuing a master’s degree in informatics with the idea of becoming board certified to learn more about the use of electronic health records and the end-users' satisfaction with it. Dr. Linares like to travel, cook, read, study, and learn more about medicine. Her favorite character is Mickey Mouse and her house is full of little stuffed mice all over (different sizes)!

Leo Morales, MD, PhD
University of Washington, Seattle
Leo Morales, MD, PhD, is a professor of medicine and assistant dean with the Office for Healthcare Equity and co-director of the Latino Center for Health at the University of Washington. Dr. Morales received his medical degree and master’s degree in public health from the University of Washington and his doctorate in policy analysis from the Rand Graduate School. He completed a residency in primary care internal medicine at the San Francisco General Hospital/UCSF and a fellowship in primary care research at UCLA. Dr. Morales’s research focuses on Latino health, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in health, and the measurement of patient-reported outcomes in diverse communities. Dr. Morales was the principal investigator of the Washington State Latino Physician Workforce study and lead author of the report Today's Changes for Serving Tomorrow's Diverse Communities: Increasing the Latino Physician Workforce NOW.

Alina Urriola, MD, MPH
Family Medicine, Vera Sandpoint, Seattle
Dr. Urriola’s career in family medicine reflects her passion for health restoration, maintenance, and promotion while addressing clinical and social risk factors for disease and injury. She has provided care in the Puget Sound region since 1998 and currently is the lead clinician at Vera Sandpoint, an advanced primary care practice where she is committed to excellent compassionate care that is tailored to each patient’s conditions, values, traditions, and beliefs. Dr. Urriola believes in the power of patients setting health goals and being their own agents of care and healing. She is responsible for her clinic’s quality metrics and population health. In addition to her practice, she provides care at Lahai Health, a volunteer-based health care organization caring for the underserved in the Puget Sound region, serves on the board of trustees of Bastyr University, and is a faculty member at the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine at Washington State University. Dr. Urriola graduated from medical school in Brazil and trained in family medicine in her native Panama. She subsequently completed residency in family medicine and in preventive medicine/public health in St. Louis, Missouri. She is board certified in family medicine, preventive medicine, and lifestyle medicine. Her exposure to a wide variety of settings and demographics has sparked her interest in the factors that determine health, illness, and health-seeking behaviors. Dr. Urriola's personal interests include painting, gardening, cooking, fitness, following her husband’s band, hiking, and traveling.

Irving Zavala, MD
Hospitalist, Seattle
Dr. Zavala grew up in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. After completing medical school, Dr. Zavala returned to the United States in 2016 where he began his medical residency in family medicine at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen, Texas. Passionate about fighting health inequity and disparities in medical education, Dr. Zavala has been a volunteer doctor in multiple nonprofit organizations, and founded a nonprofit telemedicine service offering free medical care to remote and underserved communities in Mexico during residency. He dreams to be part of a new generation of Latinx doctors, who, through the power of education, bring an end to health disparities in the Latinx community. Dr. Zavala now works as a hospitalist and attending physician in Seattle. In his free time he hosts a YouTube channel giving free clinical lectures to medical students in Mexico.