As SAHM President, my vision would be to strengthen our Society as a movement — where science, equity, and healing intersect. We stand at a pivotal moment in adolescent health: the politicization of science, the erosion of rights, and the burnout of our healers’ demand that we “hold the line” for truth, justice, and care. SAHM must continue to lead as both a professional home and a moral compass — translating our aspirational plan into action that protects youth and sustains those who serve them.

1. Health Equity and Anti-oppression in Practice — Hold the Line

Inspired by Nobel laureate Maria Ressa’s call to “hold the line,” SAHM would defend truth and dignity in adolescent care by operationalizing equity. This means embedding equity in every dimension of our work — from research standards to program design — and organizing our resources and people to support that goal.

• Advocacy: Chapters would identify emerging threats to youth health—from restrictive policies to social and structural inequities—while uplifting Youth Champions as essential partners in shaping our response. We would place special focus on youth whose voices are most often unheard: girls and LGBTQ+ youth (especially transgender youth); young men struggling with isolation or drawn into extremist narratives; and those who are Native American, immigrant or refugee, racialized, targeted for their faith, justice-involved, unhoused, neurodivergent, living in larger bodies, chronically ill, living with disabilities or addiction, or growing up in rural or under-resourced areas. We will “center on the margins”—because that is where truth, wisdom, and healing begin.

• Research: Committees and Special Interest Groups would curate and synthesize global scientific data into one-page “science-at-your-fingertips” tools for clinicians, advocates, and educators, ensuring equitable translation of evidence.

• Education and Clinical Strategy: SAHM’s Educational and Clinical Strategy teams would continue scaling anti-racist clinical tools — from identity-affirming intake forms and bias-aware screening to confidentiality workflows that protect youth across all legal contexts. The goal would be to create rapid “practice packs” that clinicians can implement in under 60 minutes to protect the rights of all youth, particularly those most impacted by political divides.

Equity is not an initiative — it is the glue that holds every part of SAHM’s Aspirational Plan together.

2. Workforce, Training, and Well-Being — Protect the Healer

Historian Timothy Snyder wrote, “Tyranny makes you tired.” So does the politicization of our science. To heal our field, we must first heal our healers. Using a Radical Healing framework, I would prioritize trauma-responsive training centered on provider well-being. This restorative practice begins with the healer using trauma-responsive tools on themselves and extends to everyone they care for. Our clinicians, scientists, and advocates are social capital — they cannot lead change if they are depleted.

We would:

• Create forums and spaces that foster Trauma Responsive Care centered on the healer.

• Prioritize integrative care models that create safe spaces to foster both teens’ internal assets, support caregivers, and pay attention to sociopolitical drivers of health.

• Expand regional training hubs, especially in adolescent medicine “deserts.”

• Integrate participatory teaching methods (CBPR, YPAR) that honor local wisdom.

Protecting the healer is not self-care — it is collective survival and the foundation of effective, compassionate care that keeps us alert, creative, and ready to act.

3. Policy and Systems Impact — Bridge the Globe

Echoing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s belief that “solutions lie in the communities most impacted,” SAHM would bridge global and local innovations to strengthen adolescent health worldwide. SAHM is uniquely positioned to act as a convener of Global South–North knowledge exchange, inviting clinicians, youth leaders, and researchers from diverse countries to share community-rooted models of care. This approach would foster solidarity while challenging dominant frameworks that have historically excluded the perspectives of the Global South, Indigenous peoples, and immigrants.

We would build shared platforms for:

• Global-local learning forums and international youth-led summits.

• Collaborative research across continents and diasporas.

• Community-based innovation showcases at our Annual Meetings.

This is not symbolic — it is strategic. By elevating solutions born from scarcity, resilience, and cultural wisdom, we strengthen our collective ability to meet youth where they are and reimagine systems that heal.

Collaboration would remain essential. SAHM leaders would continue building bridges with institutions such as ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, America’s Essential Hospitals, WHO, UNICEF, IAAH, and WONCA. Together, we would defend every right we have conquered while identifying unmet needs deserving of our care.

Closing: A Call to Collective Purpose

Paul Wellstone preached: “We all do better when we all do better.” My personal North Star.

SAHM’s greatest strength is its people — a community of healers, scientists, educators, and advocates united by love for youth. My invitation is simple: take care of yourself, devote your energy to one cause, and help one institution of your choice. I hope you choose SAHM.

As the primary public face of SAHM, I would elevate our Society as a trusted leader in adolescent health — grounded in science, guided by equity, and expressed through compassion. I would celebrate our members’ diverse voices, highlight how we partner with youth and families, and amplify the message that investing in young people is investing in our shared humanity.

As a South American immigrant Latina physician, I would embody and voice that message in two languages and one accent — as a tangible reminder to youth around the world that their identities and immigration are sources of strength, not barriers.

Together, we would hold the line, protect the healer, and bridge the globe — ensuring that every adolescent, everywhere, experiences health care and care (education, community) as an act of justice and hope.

Link to poem: Mario Benedetti, ‘The South Also Exists’  [El Sur también existe]
https://mronline.org/2007/02/08/benedetti080207-html

To advance the health and well-being of adolescents and young adults—especially those from marginalized communities—SAHM must act boldly across five interconnected domains that transform equity from aspiration into practice.

1. Continue to Embed Equity Across All Structures
   Equity must remain the lens through which all SAHM activities are designed and evaluated. Every abstract, publication, training, and policy stance should reflect anti-oppression frameworks, culturally responsive approaches, and inclusive practices that move beyond deficit narratives. Integrative-Intergenerational care should be reflected in those policies and the SAHM mission.

2. Center Youth Voice and Community Co-Leadership
   Youth and community leaders must co-create our priorities. SAHM should resource Youth Advisory Councils, embed participatory methods into governance and research. Special attention is needed to engage youth of all places and tending to the global need to protect girls and LGBTQ rights, plus exploring initiatives that address the growing radicalization and isolation of young males through belonging, empathy, and critical consciousness frameworks.

3. Redesign Training to Prepare a Justice-Aligned Workforce
   SAHM can continue shaping the next generation of providers by integrating trauma-responsive care, intergenerational care (with an emphasis on caregivers), inclusive leadership, and intersectional identity frameworks into training, ensuring that future clinicians embody both skill and conscience.

4. Continue to Influence Policy with Integrity and Participatory Alliances
   SAHM must remain unapologetic in defending reproductive rights, gender-affirming care, immigrant protections, climate justice, youth mental health, and carceral reform—amplifying research into advocacy through collaboration with grassroots, national, and global coalitions.

5. Bridge Global-Local Innovation
   Aligned with The Lancet Commission, SAHM can serve as a convener of South–North knowledge exchange, spotlighting youth-led innovations from Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Indigenous, and immigrant communities. By elevating these models—born from scarcity yet rich in relational wisdom—SAHM will nurture a global movement where healing, justice, and science meet.

My leadership is rooted in twenty-five years of advancing adolescent health through clinical innovation, organizational transformation, and global advocacy. From my early days in rural Argentina to my work as Health Equity Clinical Outcomes Director at Minnesota’s largest safety-net hospital, I have led with one guiding principle: equity is not a statement—it’s a daily practice. I have advanced equity-centered scholarship through programs I designed—Aquí Para Ti/Here for You (24 years), Between Us (12 years), and Radical Healing (2 years)—that integrate trauma-responsive, culturally grounded, and family-based care for marginalized youth. In parallel, I created scholarly work translating our lessons.

Within SAHM, as a member and Chair of the Diversity Committee (2016–2020), I co-developed policies at the abstract level, co-led revisions to SAHM’s demographic survey to better capture our members’ diverse identities, and co-led a Position Paper linking Racism and Health, one of its first in the US. I presented several Institutes that led to the creation of the SAHM Anti-Racism toolkit. As a Board member (2022–2025), I helped restructure SAHM’s leadership model, ensuring transparent governance and inclusive representation as SAHM transitioned to a new management partner.

Internationally, I co-founded the first Adolescent and Young Adult Care Group within the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) and presented and participated at as many IAAH Conferences as I could.

As a physician, educator, and community advocate, I bring a scientist–practitioner–advocate lens, honed through servant leadership and participatory practice. My approach emphasizes co-creation, accountability, and the courage to hold hard conversations with grace.

SAHM’s next chapter requires relational leadership—one that bridges science and humanity, global vision and local action. I bring that bridge. I’m ready to help SAHM lead with integrity, transparency, healing, and unwavering commitment to the young people and professionals we serve.