Marcos Moreno (physician) facts for kids

Marcos Antonio Moreno is an American doctor, public health champion, and medical researcher. He is part Mexican and Native American, and he is an official member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. His family comes from the Pascua Yaqui Reservation in southern Arizona.

Marcos Moreno went to Cornell University, where he studied how the brain works (Neuroscience) and also American Indian Studies. He was the first person from the Pascua Yaqui Reservation to graduate from an Ivy League University. He is also the only doctor from his Yaqui community on the reservation. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from UND-School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Today, he is a resident doctor at Yale University, specializing in Psychiatry.

Exploring Medical Research

While at Cornell, Marcos Moreno helped with studies in a lab that looked at how kids' brains develop. They explored how a family's money situation might affect how people think about having enough resources. He also worked in another lab studying how changes in the environment affect the brains of mammals.

Besides his research at Cornell University, Moreno also spent time at the University of Arizona. There, he researched how certain brain chemicals affect addiction pathways.

During medical school, Moreno worked with Larry Burd, a leading expert on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Together, they published research about how to care for mothers and babies during childbirth. They also created nine guidelines to help doctors improve the health and safety of mothers and babies.

Moreno also made important contributions to research on a rare brain condition called Posterior Reversible Encephalopathy Syndrome, or PRES. This condition is not well understood. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Moreno and his team saw a patient who got SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19). This patient was treated with a medicine called tocilizumab and later developed PRES. Many similar cases have been reported since then, but Moreno and his team were among the first to share this connection.

Helping Public Health

Marcos Moreno helped start a local group of the Global Medical Brigades with St. John's University in 2013. The next year, Moreno and this group began traveling to Ghana in West Africa. They provided medical care, taught people about health, and helped set up health programs in villages that didn't have much medical help. Later, they made similar trips to Latin America. The Global Medical Brigades is the largest student-run organization in the world. It has groups in Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Greece.

Besides his work overseas, Moreno also helped the Pascua Yaqui Tribe with their first Community Health Needs Assessment in 2014. This project helped the tribe plan, collect information, and write reports about their community's health needs. This was the start of Moreno's efforts to help the Pascua Yaqui Tribe get national accreditation from the United States Public Health Accreditation Board. The tribe achieved this important goal in 2019.

Today, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe is one of only six tribal health facilities in the United States to have this special accreditation. It is also the only accredited tribal facility in the Four Corners Region. This national accreditation helps the Pascua Yaqui Tribe keep track of their health and social programs. It also helps them improve access to care and the quality of life on their reservation.

Covid-19 Pandemic Efforts

Like many Indigenous communities, the Covid-19 pandemic greatly affected Moreno's reservation community early on. Because of this, he played a big part in the tribe's vaccination efforts. He appeared in several media campaigns by the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, encouraging his fellow tribal members to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as soon as they could.

Even though some people in the Yaqui community were unsure at first, Moreno and the tribe's strong outreach through the Pascua Yaqui Tribe's Covid-19 Task Force worked well. The community achieved impressive vaccination rates compared to other groups in America. This success was so notable that Moreno and his team received national recognition. They published an article in The New England Journal of Medicine, where they shared examples of community-level actions. Many of these were used in Moreno's own community. These actions helped Native Americans achieve the highest rates of Covid-19 vaccination in the United States.

Environmental Health Policy

In 2022, Moreno contributed to an article in The Lancet. This article, led by his former colleague Victor Lopez-Carmen, looked at cases and evidence of what they called "environmental violence" against Yaqui communities. These communities are in the Rio Yaqui Valley of Sonora, Mexico. The article gathered information and reported many examples of health problems, birth defects, and learning delays. These issues were linked to high levels of pesticides found in the blood of people in this area.

This publication was very critical of a U.S. law called the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). This law allows pesticides that are not approved for use in the U.S. to be made in the U.S. and sent to other countries. This is what happened with many of the pesticides used in the Rio Yaqui Valley.

Helping Native American Communities

Moreno has written a lot about the challenges faced by Native American communities. One of his important writings is a chapter called America’s Forgotten Minority. This chapter is in a book titled Global Indigenous Youth: Through Their Eyes. This book was published in 2019. It was a joint project by the United Nations and Columbia University's Institute of Human Rights. The goal was to share information about Indigenous Peoples from the direct experiences of young people from all seven United Nations regions.

The book shows the real lives, challenges, struggles, and hopes of Indigenous youth for their rights to be respected. Moreno was one of two authors chosen to represent the North American region, and the only author from the United States. Moreno attended the official book launch at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. There, he spoke at the press conference about his chapter and the ongoing need to help develop Native American communities in the U.S.

Moreno continued to discuss the changing needs of Native American communities and their healthcare in another book chapter. This chapter, titled Bridging the Gap, is in the book American Indian Health Disparities in the 21st Century, published in 2021.

Awards and Recognition

In 2016, Marcos Moreno received the Morris K. Udall award. This award recognizes college students in the United States for their work in environmental activism, public policy, or healthcare. It also comes with a $7,000 prize.

Also in 2016, The Cornell Daily Sun newspaper reported that Moreno became a member of the 125th group inducted into Quill and Dagger. This is one of the oldest honor societies at Ivy League universities. This society used to be secret, but now the names of new members are published in Cornell's newspaper. A book with all the members' names is also available online. Not much is known about what the organization does today, but people say they have a lot of influence at Cornell and even with the U.S. Government.

In 2017, Moreno received the Henry Ricciuti Award from Cornell University. This award recognized his excellent research, strong leadership, and amazing community service. Also in 2017, he was given the Solomon Cook Award for Engaged Research and Scholarship. This honor is given to only one Cornell undergraduate student each year.

Because of Moreno's strong dedication and work in communities that need help, the United States Department of Health & Human Services named him a National Health Service Corp Medical Scholar in 2017.

Quill and Dagger 125th Tapping Class, Marcos Moreno's name is visible at the bottom left.