MIDEMO

My career really started in neurology. But because I'm a listener, I realized there are many non-clinical issues that prevent people from getting the right health care. So I decided to earn a master's degree in public health. Somehow, making communities healthier made me happier than making individuals healthier. Now I'm no longer treat individual patients. My focus for over twenty years has been on listening to clients and colleagues, diagnosing problems in health care delivery systems, and figuring out together how to solve the problems we find.

Inspiration is the basis of my success in public health and development. It is what gets me excited every morning when I get to work. It is in the intimacy of patient care that I draw my inspiration. It is in remembering the needs of a single patient's right to health care that I have established MIDEGO.

So when asked what I do, I say that I am a "development doctor." When invariably, the next question is: "What is a development doctor?" I say a development doctor is a doctor who is inspired by the vision of reaching every sick child, every pregnant mother, and every individual in the world, and who makes no excuses but works to reach at least 1% every day. The result of this philosophy is that I achieve a lot more than I imagined I ever could.

Dr. Beracochea has committed herself to rapidly reducing the 11 million children who die of preventable and treatable conditions, the hundreds of thousands of women who die every year of pregnancy and delivery complications and of breast and cervical cancer, and the innumerable deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases in the US and abroad. This task seems overwhelming. But goals exist, and they exist to stretch our creativity and take us beyond our self-imposed limits.

As founder, president, and CEO of MIDEGO, Dr. Beracochea has led and has been an inspiration to her colleagues and the people she serves. It is her "Think big and reach 1% every day" philosophy that keeps her projects productive and successful.

Known to her peers as a coach and mentor, Dr. Beracochea remains inspired by her basic desire to help others and make a difference every day.

Dr. Beracochea has more than two decades of experience as a physician, international health care consultant, hospital manager, health policy advisor, lecturer, researcher, and mentor. Her specialty is designing innovative solutions to global health care delivery problems.

Read more about Dr. Elvira at www.elviraberacochea.com