NASPGHAN Celebrates Leonel Rodriguez MD, MS for Hispanic-Latinx Heritage Month.
Dr Rodriguez is a pediatric gastroenterologist at Yale University. He is from Guatemala, he emigrated to US after finishing medical school, pursuing further training in Pediatrics and then in pediatric gastroenterology and gastrointestinal motility. He is passionate about Neurogastroenterology and Motility, from treating patients to training fellows and conducting research in the field. He has been very active in NASPGHAN in multiple committees, starting at the Fellows cmte then to Technology, International and Neurogastroenterology. Outside of medicine he is passionate about traveling with his family and watching and playing soccer.
Name: Leonel Rodriguez MD, MS
Current position and institution:
Chief, Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition
Director, Pediatric Neurogastroenterology and Motility Center
Yale University School of Medicine
Hometown: Guatemala City, Guatemala
Favorite GI disease: Chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction, it was my first and most challenging case as a fellow, triggered my interest in Neurogastroenterology as there were less than a handful of physicians in the country dealing with such condition back then.
Hobbies: Soccer, the real football! From playing to watch every game I can and now support my two sons who also play.
Favorite Vacation Spot: Cape Cod
Favorite Activist: I grew up during the civil war in Guatemala, and despite being protected from its effects as I grew up in the city and the war was mainly affecting the villages in the mountains, I was exposed to the repression from the government and after the civil war to the intense fight for human and civil rights of an activist, Helen Mack, after her sister, anthropologist Myrna Mack, was silenced by the government for her work on social displacement after the civil war. I am inspired by my biggest mentor, my father, a retired Supreme Court justice in Guatemala.
Book You Recommend: Quiet Leadership: Carlo Ancelotti. Most of us grew up with the conception that leaders are fierce and fighters, commanders, sharks at times. This book is about the career of one of the best soccer coaches in Europe, known for his “kill them with kindness” approach, and shows how you can be a quiet and yet a very successful leader.
Best Career Advice You’ve Received: There is not enough space to describe all the great advice I have received in my life from multiple mentors, but the most influential was my father, he told me when I was a child: “we are not individuals but a society, we all have a purpose and a mission in that society, your job is to find that purpose and fulfill it”, and I have tried to live my life pursuing that.
