Telemedicine and Access to Care

With over 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical sector, Adriana Zupa-Fernandez is a dedicated scientist and leader. She has expertise across the industry and currently has assets in the clinic to potentially treat multiple autoimmune diseases. Adriana has worked as a Biologist to discover small molecule therapies and has also managed clinical trials. Her deep-understanding spans the Immunoscience, Immuno-Oncology, and Neuroscience spaces. Passionate and driven, she has proven herself in getting first-in-class assets from the discovery space to the clinic. She has taken that innovative approach and parlayed it into managing a global team focusing on people strategy, business insights, diversity & inclusion, and company culture as the Global Lead of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (BMS) People Business Resource Group focusing on the Millennial and beyond workforce. Before taking the role as the CLIMB (Cultivating Leadership and Innovation for Millennials and Beyond) Lead, she collaborated to develop BMS’ first trans-inclusive guidelines, created and led an Adoption Community Network and successfully helped shape inclusive and flexible parental leave policies for the workforce. Beyond that, she facilitates patient advocacy relationships and continually finds ways to increase diversity in clinical trials. In 2017, she was chosen to represent BMS as a One Young World (OYW) delegate and was then selected in 2018 as the OYW team lead/Returning Ambassador for the company. She is an advocate, trailblazer, and author of multiple publications. She looks forward to growing and learning in her current leadership role to continually push for progress within the workplace and beyond.

Sandeep is the Chief Medical Officer at Bluestream Health. He most recently served as the Chief Innovation Officer at Medici, and prior to joining the Medici team, Sandeep worked to enable cognitive technology at the point of care for HCPs and patients, to positively impact clinical learning and quality measures for healthcare organizations, pharma, and payers. Previously as co-founder of Health Recovery Solutions, he helped empower patients to better manage their health and improve quality of life using evidence-based interventions. Dr. Pulim also helped create sustainable healthcare innovation via enabling fellows to improve the health of communities by creating innovative technology solutions that deliver transformational impact while molding the next generation of leaders at Health for America.

Morhaf Al Achkar, MD, Ph.D. was born in Aleppo-Syria and migrated to the United States in 2006 after finishing medical school. He also obtained a Ph.D. in Education from Indiana University. Currently, he is a practicing family physician and a faculty member at the University of Washington.
In 2016, Morhaf was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Since then, his research has focused on the experience of patients living with lung cancer. His writing is based on interviews he did with 39 patients who live, like him, with incurable cancers. He explores how these patients find meaning, cope, and build resilience.

Dr. Bouchonville is an Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism and serves as Medical Director of the UNM Diabetes Comprehensive Care Center and UNM Center for Diabetes and Nutrition Education. He is an Associate Director of Project ECHO and Medical Director of the Endocrinology teleECHO (Endo ECHO) program at the ECHO Institute. In 2014, he launched the Endo ECHO program to build expertise for complex diabetes management among the primary care workforce in medically underserved regions of New Mexico. In his role as Associate Director, he joined the Cancer Initiative in 2019.

Letícia brings a unique experience to OLA (Organization for Latino Achievement) that spans from working as a physician in the pharmaceutical industry across different global markets such as Brazil, Canada, and the United States; as a physician scientist at the University of São Paulo and University of Toronto; and as a clinician specialized in Endocrinology and Internal Medicine. Letícia’s research and academic training includes an MD, Master of Science from Maringá State University in Brazil; Master of Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Toronto in Canada; and a PhD from the University of São Paulo in Brazil. She most recently graduated in 2019 with her MBA from Cornell University.

Her career at Bristol-Myers Squibb started in 2010 in Brazil. Later she was working in BMS Canada and since 2013 she has been in New Jersey working at different functions at medical affairs teams at BMS. She currently lives in Skillman-NJ, with her husband, Mauricio, and 11-year old daughter, Valentina.

Leticia has been appointed as the full time lead for OLA at BMS in June 2019.

Dr. Sirisha Mohan is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine. She serves as the Telehealth Lead for the department and is Interim Associate Program Director of the Keck Medicine of USC Family Medicine Residency program. Upon graduating from medical school at the University of Lublin and finishing at the Western Reserve Health Education Family Medicine Residency Program in 2014, Dr. Mohan completed a fellowship in Women’s Health at Florida Hospital. She began her career in academic medicine at the University of California in San Francisco where she served as the women’s health director and started clinical services in telemedicine in 2016. She joined the Keck School of Medicine in 2018 where she is Director of the Women’s Health Elective, lecturer and preceptor to the Family Medicine Clerkship and Senior Advisor to those students applying into Family Medicine. Her areas of clinical specialty include telemedicine, family planning and contraception, management of abnormal pap smears and abnormal uterine bleeding, chronic pelvic pain, hormone replacement therapy, weight management, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, osteoporosis, depression and anxiety.