Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Hilda Solis First District Omar Ridley-Thomas

Los Angeles County

Board of Supervisors
Hilda Solis

First District

Omar Ridley-Thomas

Second District

Shiela Kuehl

Third District

Don Knabe

Fourth District

Michael D. Antonovich

Fifth District

Kim McKenzie, RN, MSN

Chief Executive Officer

Anish Mahajan, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Patricia Soltero, RN, MSN

Chief Nursing Officer

1000 West Carson Street

Torrance, CA 90509

Tel: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

March 1, 2017

Dear Colleagues;
It gives me great pleasure to write this letter of recommendation for Dr. Fernando Mayor for the American Academy of Neurology Resident Scholarship. Fernando is a resident in good standing in the Harbor-UCLA Neurology Program and is scheduled to graduate in June 2017.
Fernando grew up in Colombia. He completed medical school and internship in Bogota in 2008 and proceeded to stints as a primary care physician in the military and community. He then came to the US, where he spent two productive research years (2011-2013) in UCLA/David Geffen’s Division of Interventional Radiology. Through this time, he co-authored five papers on stroke-related topics, one as first author. He also gained considerable experience as coordinator of over a dozen clinical studies. Fernando interviewed with us while still working as a researcher in our sister institution. I was impressed with his well-balanced demeanor and diligence, as well as the strong level of support from Dr. Viñuela and other research mentors. We ranked him for our program and were very happy when he matched to us.
Dr. Mayor started our training program in July 2014 after completing medical internship in the Bronx. He has done very well here. Fernando has consistently merited above-average to excellent faculty evaluations. He is bright, serious and eager to learn. He is very professional and caring in his interactions with patients and his ability to converse in their native language has been extremely helpful. He is well-liked by his fellow trainees and faculty. Fernando creates no drama, completes his paperwork on time and is entirely reliable. He has organized our Grand Rounds and resident-level didactics this year. In rotation, he has undertaken a series of resident lectures and journal club presentations. He has done a great job at all of these. On the consultation and ward services, he has spent time teaching medical students and interns in subjects that include demonstration of the neurological examination, basic scientific principles of neurology, differential diagnosis and evidence-based practices. Given his research history, he has decided to follow a career in vascular neurology. He has been accepted for stroke fellowship next year at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center here in Los Angeles.
Fernando has shown passion and concern for our indigent patient population in the long hours he spends on our consultation and ward services. I think that he will make an excellent neurologist. I enthusiastically recommend him for the AAN Resident Scholarship. The funds will help our public hospital-based program to send him to the annual meeting.
Sincerely,


Mark Morrow, MD

Clinical Professor of Neurology

David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Chairman and Residency Program Director

Harbor-UCLA Department of Neurology