Dr. Pedro Maria highlights the Hispanic Urologists Society of North America

In this video, Pedro P. Maria, DO, discusses the Hispanic Urologists Society of North America, which he founded to help increase the number of Hispanics in the urology work force and improve outcomes for Hispanic patients. Maria is an attending physician and an associate professor of urology at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York.

Video Transcript:

The premise and the reason I founded that society is because we had the Indian Society and the Chinese society, and I felt that there was a need for the Hispanic urologists to have a society, to get together. Only 5% of the urology force in the United States is of Hispanic origin. Hispanics are now the majority of the minority. Let me give you a simple example. In the Bronx there's more than 1 million Latinos. Do you know how many urologists are there [that are] Hispanic? 2. So, I work long hours, as you could expect, because everybody wants somebody that understands not only the language, but their culture, and it's happening all over the country.

Another vision is when you have Hispanic students that go to med school, one of the first things to happen is that they try to get these minority students to go into primary care. Why not urologists? Why not neurosurgeons? We want to serve as role models for those pre-med students to come into the urology field [and] to explore what urology is, because there is a great need not only in general for urologists, but for Hispanic urologists. That's another reason we're doing that. Another thing is if we gather all the Hispanic urologists around the country, we see the same type of patients. We want to see what the ailments [are] that are affecting our community. How can we do anything better and advocate for those patients and their needs?

This transcription has been edited for clarity.