Dr. Pilar Ortega, MD
Medical Organization for Latino Advancement (MOLA)
Dr. Pilar Ortega is an Emergency Physician and an Assistant Clinical Professor with dual appointments at the University of Illinois Chicago Departments of Emergency Medicine and Medical Education, where she directs and teaches the Medical Spanish program for the College of Medicine’s Hispanic Center of Excellence.
Dr. Ortega is Co-founder and President for the Medical Organization for Latino Advancement (MOLA), and the Founder and Director of the National Association of Medical Spanish (la Asociación Nacional de Español Médico), as well as author of Spanish and the Medical Interview (2nd Ed., 2015) a textbook for clinicians to learn to communicate with Spanish-speaking patients. She has been recognized for her innovative and influential work as a recipient of the 2017 Crain’s Chicago Business 40 under 40, internationally as a recipient of Spain’s Royal National Academy of Medicine’s 2018 Award for Health Information, Communication and Dissemination, and most recently as recipient of a Stemmler Fund grant from the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) to study medical Spanish proficiency assessment for bilingual physicians. Dr. Ortega is a nationally and internationally recognized speaker and author on the topics of language in health and Medical Spanish education and lives with her family in both Chicago, Illinois, and Cádiz, Spain.