El Paso Matters – Change Makers: Women’s History Month event honored El Paso women in health

More than 270 people Wednesday attended Change Makers: Borderland Women in Health at the Paso del Norte Hotel in Downtown El Paso. The event, co-hosted by El Paso Matters and Progress 321, recognized 20 local women and leaders in health fields.

Honoree Dr. Nirma D. Bustamante, an El Paso native who’s now head of the Centers for Disease Control Prevention’s Mexico office, gave the keynote speech.

Bustamante dove into her experiences as a fronteriza from El Paso making her way into the medical field as an emergency-medicine physician and then public health, supporting overseas humanitarian efforts.

Her experience includes providing health care to Syrian refugees in Greece and displaced populations in Uganda. During the 2018 Ebola outbreak, she supported vaccination teams in the Democratic Republic of Congo and worked with local epidemiologists to prevent the outbreak from spreading too far over international borders. She now continues her work in disease surveillance across the U.S.-Mexico border for the CDC. 

Though she’s always had the support of her mother, Bustamante said many people, including college counselors tried to discourage her from “reaching for an unrealistic reality,” whether it was applying for medical school or competing for an emergency medicine program. She would eventually disprove them, graduating from UT Southwestern Medical School and then Harvard University with her master’s in public health.

“Like many of you, I come from a family without generational wealth or who have the means to send me into medical school,” Bustamante said. “I put in the time, juggled the brutal hours that were required to get through medical school and worked part-time because I knew that was the only way my family and I could succeed … One thing I’ve learned as I’ve navigated my career with phenomenal individuals at the highest levels is that we are all faking it until we make it.”

The judgment continued even as a medical professional. She recalled times she was the only woman in the room, times when patients asked her newly graduated male residents to confirm her medical advice, times when she was questioned for the makeup she was or wasn’t wearing.

As a mother with a second child on the way, Bustamante told the audience that when it comes to women who want to “have it all,” they can – but what “all” looks like to one woman may be different from others.

“Use the success you have earned to free yourself of who you think you should be or what you think you should be doing next,” she said. “I have realized that my career doesn’t have to look a certain way … Health care is a wonderful field to reinvent yourself, so take advantage of it.”

The women recognized for their contribution to health and leadership roles at various health institutions in El Paso are:

• Daisy Celeste Alvarado, pediatric acute care occupational therapist at El Paso Children’s Hospital
• Alyssa C. Benavides, mentor and strategist for future health care professionals at Texas Tech Health El Paso
• Sharon Butterworth, mental health advocate and member of Paso del Norte Center at Meadows Institute Leadership Cabinet
• Amanda Chiao, director of the Pediatrics and Equity in Audiology Research Laboratory at Texas Tech University Health El Paso
• Dr. Lauren Eisenberg, vice president of Rio Grande Urology
• Gabriela A. Gallegos, attorney and community health researcher at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in El Paso
• Tasha Hopper, nurse and CEO at the Hospitals of Providence East Campus
• America Jones, nurse and CEO of Kindred Hospital El Paso
• Dr. Wilma Luquis-Aponte, director of Specialized Dental Care Education at the Hunt School of Dental Medicine in El Paso
• Eva Moya, chair of the Department of Social Work at the University of Texas at El Paso
• Dr. Daisy Nieto, cardiologist at the Hospitals of Providence Memorial Campus
• Carolyn Pena, director of Rehabilitation Services at Del Sol Medical Center
• Leslie Robbins, dean of the School of Nursing at The University of Texas at El Paso
• Andrea Tawney, vice president of Texas Tech Health El Paso
• Abigail Tarango, executive director of the University Medical Center Foundation of El Paso
• Glenda Villatoro, nurse and COO of Del Sol Medical Center
• Christine Walker, chief nursing officer at Las Palmas Medical Center
• Tracy Yellen, CEO of the Paso del Norte Health Foundation
• Martha Zepeda, community partnerships organizer for American Cancer Society, Southwest region

Read more about the honorees online and check out these photos from Wednesday’s event:

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