RISE 2019 Conference

Dr. Rafael Rodríguez Mercado was appointed the 22nd Secetary of the Department of Health of Puerto Rico on January 12, 2017. He brings a wealth of experience to the Department as a Colonel in the United States Army, serving in the Medical Reserve, as a neurosurgeon supporting Walter Reed Medical Hospital and Brook Army Medical Center and as an Associated Professor of Surgery, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He serves as Director for a renowned Endovascular Surgery Program and is the former Chancellor of the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico. He has applied this experience to the current’s administration’s public health policy centered of three strategic pillars: A patient-centered health system, fair and accessible health services and an emphasis on primary care and prevention.

Dr. Rodríguez Mercado was born in 1961 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Puerto Rico. As a student, he received the research and student awards, as well as the recognition of the House of Representatives in 1988. He completed his specialty in Neurosurgery after seven years of traineeship at the University of Puerto Rico, School of Medicine. Then, he obtained a subspecialty in endovascular neurosurgery from the State University of New York at Buffalo, NY.