Residents
PGY 3 Residents
- Adriana Betancourth, MD
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PGY3
Born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Dr. Adriana Betancourth always had a passion for medicine. Being the only girl in a family of three, made her really close to her mother, who is also a doctor.
She pursued her studies in medicine at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras. Upon completion of her degree, she started preparing for her USMLE to pursue an Internal Medicine Residency joining the UTRGV Internal Medicine Program at DHR. She also participated in medical missions in underserved areas of her country and Central America. Medicine is not her only passion she plays the piano and likes to do physical activity.
- Dayana Carreras, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Carreras was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. Inspired by her mother, Dr. Carreras began her medical studies in Cuba and finished in Universidad del Valle de Mexico. After medical school, Dr. Carreras practiced medicine for one year in rural areas in Mexico. Soon after, she wanted to pursuit her medical career in United States. She is excited to embark on this journey with the growing Internal Medicine program and is blessed to be given the privilege to provide care for the underserved people of the Rio Grande Valley. Her interests are Hematology Oncology and Hospitalist Medicine. During her time off, she enjoys exercising such as trail running, rock climbing, and CrossFit. She also loves traveling, painting, playing sports, and spending as much time at the beach as possible with her family and friends.
- Azucena Del Real, MD
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PGY3
Azucena Del Real was born and raised in Mexico. Her inspiration to become a physician was instilled by her father who would provide medical care to those living in rural communities in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. She envisioned her life and career emulating her father’s approach – good diagnosis and referral, multicultural sensitivity, and relationships with patients that establish trust. Dr. Del Real graduated from Centro de Estudios Universitarios Xochicalco, school of Medicine in Tijuana Mexico. After graduating she worked for a CRO doing diabetes clinical research ; later transitioned to doing high risk and inpatient case management assisting underrepresented people in San Diego California. To gain even more grounding in issues attached to care of underserved groups and understand further the importance of a physician's role in public health she pursued a Master of advance studies degree majoring clinical research, with the University of California San Diego. Her thesis was directed to investigate the ongoing barriers to care in the Era of Direct-Acting Antivirals for patients with hepatitis C & HIV. Her interests include primary care, infectious diseases and hematology. Outside of Medicine she enjoys traveling, hiking, animal rescue and cooking. She loves spending time with her husband who is a Chief in the U.S Navy and with her dogs ( Piru, Pulga & Fortuna). Dr. Del Real believes that everyone, both lucky and unlucky, deserves a chance at a healthy life and if she can help people achieve that, then she will live a life of value and meaning.
- Serag Fares, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Serag Fares was born and raised in Tripoli, Libya. He obtained his medical degree from Tripoli University, Libya. He did his internship year at Tripoli Medical center. After graduation, he practiced medicine and worked as a primary care physician in different underserved areas in Libya. He also enjoyed working with Libyan Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, for which he had opportunities to help and support people everywhere during the civil wars and natural disasters. He was selected to be a teaching assistant at University of Tripoli. He was awarded a scholarship to pursue higher education, where he was able to obtain a Master of Science in clinical research at Rush University in Chicago, Illinois. He completed multiple rotations in different health care settings. Outside the hospital he enjoys playing guitar, traveling, playing soccer, and spending time with his family.
- Mariana Gonzalez Del Hierro, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Mariana Gonzalez Del Hierro was born and raised in Mexico. She obtained her medical degree from Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara. After graduating from medical school she worked on multiple research projects in cardiovascular regenerative medicine at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, Texas, and also in hepatobiliary research at Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Medicas y Nutricion Salvador Zubiran in Mexico City. Dr. Gonzalez has been exposed to different health care settings during rotations in Spain, Mexico, and the United States. She is very passionate about working in underserved communities, as well as research and teaching. When she is not working or reading about medicine you can find her traveling the world and spending time at the beach.
- Rosa Guedez, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Guedez was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela in a very closed knit family. She graduated from the Universidad de Carabobo, School of Medicine in her hometown. After Med School, she practiced medicine in rural (underserved) areas in Venezuela. Later she decided to move to the United States to pursue her medical career by means of the USMLE pathway before joining the UTRGV Internal Medicine Residency program. She participated in several observerships, the last two of them in Minnesota where she met and married her husband Matt and his beautiful cat “Dylan”. When Rosa is not working she enjoys spending time with her husband and exploring the great outdoors. She is passionate about cooking and helping others.
- Dina Hammad, MD
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PGY3
Dina Hammad, was born and raised in Syria. She earned her medical degree from School of Medicine in Damascus University, Syria. Soon after graduation, she moved to Canada, her second hometown, to join my family. Then, she started a new chapter of her life, working on USMLE exams, and decided to move to USA. She participated in many observership and externship rotations in different states, and lastly joined Washington University in St.Louis and worked as a research volunteer in Nephrology department, and was able to publish and present in American Society of Transplantation.
Since she believes that all human should have equal opportunities to get high quality level of health care, she hopes that being part of UTRGV Internal Medicine Program, she can offer a valuable and meaningful help to the underserved communities, here in the valley and later around the world. She is interested in Hospital medicine and Rheumatology.
During her free time, she enjoys cooking and baking. Love to spend time with family and friends, and walking outdoors.
- Irma Huayanay, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Irma Huayanay was born and raised in Lima, Peru, where she completed her medical education at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in 2014. Upon graduation she started working in the Gorgas Course in Tropical Medicine and as a research fellow in CONEVID (Knowledge and evidence unit) at her alma mater. Her passion for medicine, preventative care and for working with different communities led her begin her journey to the US. While she was working as cancer prevention doctor in Peru, she has completed several observerships all over US. Dr. Huayanay’s enthusiasm as well as her compassion led her to volunteer at the Get2Breast CARE program, where she gave speeches about breast cancer prevention in Washington DC and volunteered at Amara hospice in McAllen. In her free time, she enjoys singing, kickboxing and training her labrador, Danna!
- Ayesha Khan, MD
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PGY3
I was born and raised in Pakistan, where I attended medical school at Islamic International Medical College. After completion of my medical degree, I finished a one-year internship at a tertiary care hospital in Islamabad and that is where my journey to pursue residency in Internal Medicine in the U.S. began. Soon after, I moved to New York city and had the privilege to work as a research volunteer at The Mount Sinai Hospital, in the department of Endocrinology, under the renowned researcher and clinician, Prof. Dr. Mone Zaidi. When it was time to apply for residency, I was interested in a program with fantastic clinical training, research opportunities, and whose residents are actually friends outside of work. I was thrilled when I learned I matched here because being here has given me the opportunity to care for an incredibly diverse, underserved patient population both longitudinally in an outpatient practice and more acutely in the inpatient setting. In my free time, I love to read, catch up with family, and travel.
- Gabriel Lora, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Lora was born and raised in Dominican Republic, where he attended medical school graduating with honors from Pontificia Unversidad Catolica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM). Coming from a family of doctors Dr. Lora was exposed to medicine from a very young age which solidified his love and admiration for the medical field. During medical school and after graduation Dr. Lora actively work with multiple nonprofits focused in providing medical services for those in most need in the Dominican Republic, such as the Heart to Heart foundation which provides free cardiovascular surgery to unfunded patients in the city of Santiago. In preparation for this US training Lora did rotations in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Montefiore Hospital in New York, and OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City. Outside the hospital Dr. Lora enjoys spending time with his family and friends, traveling and knowing new cultures trough gastronomy, nature, and is an avid car enthusiast
- Stephanie Luu, DO
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PGY3
Dr. Luu was born and raised in Richardson, Texas. Her family is from Taiwan, where she used to frequently travel to. She graduated from the University of North Texas Health Science Center (Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine) in 2019 and joined the UTRGV Internal Medicine Residency program. She is passionate about osteopathic manipulative medicine and has helped many of her fellow residents. In her free time she enjoys listening to music, painting her nails, watching TV, and cooking.
- Roque Mifuji, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Mifuji was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico. He studied and graduated from the school of medicine of the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon. During med school he developed a passion for research which summed up with his never ending curiosity and led him to achieve his master degree in immunology shortly after obtaining his MD degree. He later decided to continue improving as physician and pursued a residency position in Internal Medicine, which led him to go through the USMLE and apply for a residency position at UTRGV-DHR. In his free time, Dr. Mifuji enjoys cooking and baking, landscape photography, playing the piano, walking and playing with his dog Shiro, and most of all, he enjoys spending time knowing his new family at the internal medicine program and discovering new interesting places at the valley.
- Jorge Montes, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Jorge Montes IV is from the small town of Zapata in South Texas. He graduated from Texas A&M University with a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Science, and completed his medical degree at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He later graduated from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Transitional Year Residency Program. Having grown up in a large family with close ties to their community, Dr. Montes feels at home in the Rio Grande Valley where the emphasis on family is strong. When he is not treating patients and serving their families, Dr. Montes enjoys exercising, playing board games and watching old movies.
- Nghia Nguyen, DO
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PGY3
Dr. Nghia Nguyen was born and raised in Vietnam. He fell in love with Texas and has spent all of his time here since coming to the United States of America. He received his Bachelor of Science in Human Biology from the University of Texas at Austin, during which time he found his passion for medicine. He later completed his medical training at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. His professional interest is Preventive Medicine and providing health care for underserved communities. Outside of medicine, he is passionate about soccer and foods.
- Maria Pesantez, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Pesantez was born in Quito, Ecuador. Her interest in medicine started when she volunteered in medical missions in the most impoverish areas of her country. She promoted patient education to fight against the devastating effect of lack of resources and access to health care.
After obtaining her medical degree from the Catholic University of Ecuador, she moved to Miami, FL and then to Texas to join UTRGV. She is glad to promote primary prevention as a powerful resource against common public health problems in the area. She has presented various research projects in national and international meetings and published them in medical journals.
- Steffi Sathiyaraj, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Steffi Sathiyaraj was born in India but grew up in Mcallen, Texas. After graduating from her high school, The Science Academy of South Texas, she knew early on about pursuing her passion in Medicine and decided to go back to her birthplace to start her journey. She went on to receive her medical degree from Sri Ramachandra University in Chennai, India. She is very ecstatic to be back in he hometown to start her professional career in medicine. Dr. Sathiyaraj is very passionate about providing healthcare to underserved areas and learned first hand from her experiences in India the challenge of medical accessibility. During her time studying in the valley she volunteered with many local clinics such as Hope clinic to help bridge the gap with those with no access to medical care. In her free time she enjoys spending time with her family, which also include her four dogs and two cats. She hopes to eventually settle down in the valley and and be able to give back to the community which inspired her to become a doctor.
- Carol Soler, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Carol Soler was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, located in the Caribbean. Soler graduated with honors from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, obtaining her M.D. degree. She did her internship in two prisons, and worked actively for a project that was seeking to develop advanced IT infrastructures throughout the public healthcare system. Soler did rotations at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the Neurosurgery Department, as well as rotations in Bariatric Surgery at Tampa General Hospital, Internal Medicine at Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia, and Cardiology at Florida Hospital among others. Furthermore, Soler has extensive teaching experience, which allowed her to become an Assistant Professor of Basic Sciences in various Medical Schools in Antigua and Barbuda, a life-changing experience. In her free time, she loves to sing and dance.
- Marco Thierry, MD
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PGY3
Marco Thierry was born in Mendoza, Argentina and moved with his family to Toronto, Canada at the age of 8. He attended the University of Western Ontario for his Bsc. He pursued his life-long dream of being a Physician by going to Windsor University SOM on the small Caribbean island of St. Kitts and Nevis. When doing his clinicals in Chicago he realized Internal Medicine was the direction he wanted to follow. Dr. Thierry enjoys playing fantasy football, riding his motorcycle, working out with friends, and cheering for the best football team in the world - the Minnesota Vikings!
- Victor Zamora-Legoff, MD
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PGY3
Dr. Victor Zamora-Legoff was born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico. He obtained his medical degree from the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara. After 4 years of medical school Dr. Zamora-Legoff spent 2 years in Mexico City at Mexico’s National Institute for Nutrition and Health Salvador Zubiran. He developed an interest in rheumatology and conducted research for different rheumatological conditions. He is excited to have the opportunity to continue working here in the Rio Grande Valley. Outside of the hospital, he enjoys wildlife, traveling, sports, and is devoted to music.
