Guadalupe Garcia-Tsao, MD, FRCP, professor of medicine (digestive diseases) and director of the Yale Liver Center Clinical-Translational Core, received the 2023 International Mentor Award from the Asociación Latinoamericana para el Estudio del Higado (ALEH), translated as the Latin American Association of the Study of the Liver.
ALEH is comprised of members from 18 countries in Latin America who are interested in the study and practice of hepatology, said Garcia-Tsao, who is originally from Mexico. She was invited to become a member of ALEH in 1984, when she immigrated to the U.S. to be a Liver Fellow at Yale. Early in her career, she sought out her own mentors in hepatology.
“Mentoring plays a vital role in ensuring the continuity and advancement of the research and the practice of medicine into the future,” Garcia-Tsao said.
Since ALEH began organizing annual meetings, Garcia-Tsao has traveled to Latin America every year (except for 2020) to maintain her involvement in the association by giving lectures, participating in mentoring workshops, and advising young investigators and physicians from Latin American countries, many of whom have joined her in the U.S. for periods of time and who have become ALEH members themselves.
“Even though I have lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, I consider myself part of Latin America,” Garcia-Tsao said.
Garcia-Tsao’s research focuses on cirrhosis, portal hypertension, and the complications of these conditions. Working alongside mentees, she teaches them how to best approach a research or clinical question.
“Ideally, mentees move forward and become even better than their mentors,” Garcia-Tsao said. “In turn, they become good mentors themselves.”
Since forming one of the nation’s first sections of hepatology more than 75 years ago and then gastroenterology nearly 70 years ago, Yale’s Section of Digestive Diseases has had an enduring impact on research and clinical care in gastrointestinal and liver disorders. To learn more about their work, visit Digestive Diseases.