Story by Eline deBruijn Wiggins. Video by Tom Riehm.

Hispanic Heritage Month creates an additional opportunity for us to celebrate the culture and contributions of people who are Hispanic or Latino/a. At Cook Children’s, we see the world through the eyes of children and families, of all races, ethnicities and languages. Let’s hear from a few Latino/a and Hispanic pediatricians and specialists at Cook Children's.

Celina Cepeda, M.D.; Ana Rios, M.D.; Javier Gelvez, M.D.; Roberto Caballero, M.D.; Victoria Talamo, M.D. and Bianka Soria-Olmos, D.O. sat down with us to share their journeys to becoming doctors and to hear their perspectives as Hispanic and Latino/a doctors and specialists.

Did you know?

• In the U.S., Hispanics and Latinos are an underrepresented population in medical and health care professions. Only 5.8% of active physicians are Hispanic or Latino/a in the United States.
• The Hispanic and Latino population is growing and currently makes up approximately 19% of the U.S. population.
• In Tarrant County, 30.2% of the population identified as Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2021 Census.
• National Latino/a Physician Day is Oct. 1, a day to raise awareness about the need for more Latino/a doctors.

Meet 6 of our doctors and specialists

Celina Cepeda, M.D., is a pediatric nephrologist at Cook Children's Prosper. She's from Brownsville, Texas and is bilingual in Spanish and English. She enjoys teaching her patients about the kidneys and staying healthy.

“It really makes me happy when patients are Spanish-speaking only and I can help take care of them and they are appreciative of that,” Dr. Cepeda said. “Because otherwise, it's difficult for them to communicate their needs and what they're hoping to achieve for their children health-wise.”

Ana Rios, M.D., of the Cook Children's Infectious Disease team, grew up in Colombia. She says both of her parents were physicians so she always grew up listening to them talking about how passionate they were about their jobs.

“My older brother was diagnosed with leukemia and my parents were the ones who made the diagnosis,” Dr. Rios said. “That made me feel more passionate about becoming a doctor and pediatrician and helping kids like my brother. Eventually, that's what I did.”

Bianka Soria-Olmos, D.O., serves as our Medical Advisor for Digital Health and a Cook Children's pediatrician in Haslet. She has lived in Fort Worth for most of her life and as a child, she went to Cook Children's as her brother received care here.

“I always said I wanted to become a doctor and that one day I wanted to work at Cook Children's,” Dr. Soria-Olmos said. “I love that I was able to fulfill my childhood dream here. I like that we continue to strive to serve this community in the way it has been changing and do the best for the children.”

Javier Gelvez, M.D., of the Cook Children's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, is from Colombia and was the youngest of eight children. He has been at Cook Children's for 21 years.

“We can inspire other people to be physicians and as my kids grow up I say this is an opportunity to serve,” Dr. Gelvez said. “This is the beauty of a job where you can serve other people and make a living.”

Roberto Caballero, M.D., of the Cook Children's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, grew up in Mercedes in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. At the time, his father was the only doctor in town. People came to their house after hours and on weekends needing help. Dr. Caballero is bilingual and said not many days go by that he doesn't have to communicate with patients in Spanish.

“That inspired me to help others and to value what it means to be available to people in need,” Dr. Caballero said.

Victoria Talamo, M.D., of the Cook Children's Pulmonology team, is from Venezuela. She says she enjoys helping people and was inspired to become a physician just like her dad.

“He was like my hero and he was everything to me,” Dr. Talamo said. “I wanted to grow up and be like him. He would come home late at night and share these amazing stories about his day.”

Earlier this summer, my 17-year-old patient Tryston just wasn’t feeling like himself.

“I was tired all the time. My energy was low. I was losing some weight.”

Then, things quickly turned downhill. He started having chills. He was feeling really exhausted all the time, was nauseous, and had some fevers.

When he started becoming short of breath and having some chest pain, he and his mother decided it was time to head to an urgent care clinic, where he was given antibiotics and flu medications.

In 24 hours, he felt worse. His breathing became more difficult. Something was definitely wrong.

He came to Cook Children’s, and the doctors and nurses quickly realized what poor shape he was in. X-rays showed something that looked like pneumonia on both sides of his chest. But the specialists were confused, because it just wasn’t obvious.

Within 48 hours however, what WAS obvious was that Tryston was getting worse.

As his Cook Children’s pediatrician, I was sent daily updates about him. I found myself holding my breath every time I opened the update – and audibly gasped the moment I realized that he was intubated.

This means a tube was stuck down into his windpipe to breathe for him.

And the tube stayed there for the next 10 days. Machines were keeping Tryston alive. He was in the ICU, where the sickest children in the hospital stay.

“I lost a lot of sleep over this kid,” said Mary Suzanne Whitworth, M.D., medical director of Infectious Diseases at Cook Children’s. Dr. Whitworth wasn’t sure what was going on, and became very close with the family.

Was it an infection? No organism seemed to grow from cultures. Was it an autoimmune disease? The rheumatologists didn’t think so.

Even a lung biopsy – a piece of his lung which was cut out and examined under a microscope – didn’t seem to hold any clear and obvious clue as to why he was so sick. His lungs just failed, and he was in something called respiratory distress.

He was put on numerous antibiotics and antifungal medications to see if they’d help. He was needing more and more oxygen. He even needed special high-frequency ventilations (think little tiny rapid puffs of air) to keep his lungs open and working.

There’s one thing I haven’t mentioned yet. The one thing that was in the back of everyone’s minds.

One thing that Tryston mentioned to the staff of Cook Children’s before he got very ill is something I already knew, and had talked to him about the year prior.

Tryston liked to vape.

Most of you have heard about “vaping” in some way or another, but if you haven’t watched the news lately (or been in my office lately - because jeez, I am hearing more and more about it daily), “vaping” is when someone smokes an aerosolized chemical, usually from something called an e-cigarette.

Vaping is becoming VERY popular amongst teenagers. Statistics show 45% of U.S. teens have tried it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now investigating the "sudden emergence of severe lung disease linked to vaping in 14 states. Ninety-four possible cases of severe lung illness associated with vaping have been reported from the end of June to Aug. 15, the CDC reports.

Corwin Warmink, M.D., the medical director of Emergency Services at Cook Children’s, says he has seen multiple patients come through the ER and his team sees a child every week for vaping. But it’s not just teens, we are also seeing younger children, 5 and under, who have ingested vaping liquid. Scary stuff.

The most popular types look like USB devices. They’re super easy to hide. They have different “fun flavors” like mango, crème brulee and fruit medley. Some of the devices are even cute, with teddy bears on them.

They are more addictive than cigarettes. One Juul pod (currently the most popular brand) has the same amount of nicotine as an entire pack of cigarettes! “And I know lots of kids smoking 2 or 3 pods a week,” Tryston told me.

And though they claim to be a “healthier option” to regular cigarettes, I beg to differ. Inhaling chemicals is inhaling chemicals. There are over 40 different chemicals in vaping liquids. And they can cause some major damage.

They can hurt delicate lung tissue. We are seeing more and more reports of teenagers and young adults suffering severe lung injuries and seizures coming out in the news lately.

I’m really worried about how addictive these things are. Kids who want to quit are finding it more difficult to do so than if they’d smoked a pack a day.

Want to know why you should quit?

Tryston spent 18 days at Cook Children’s.

He lost almost 30 pounds. He is re-learning how to walk normally again. He has no muscle mass in his legs anymore from being bedridden for almost three weeks. He is still coughing at times. He feels very tired.

A clear answer for why his lungs failed him was never found.

“We don't know for sure. But there are literature reports of hypersensitivity pneumonitis from vaping. I told him no inhaling anything again, ever. We still don't know for sure what the trigger was. But it is very plausible that it could be due to his vaping,” Dr. Whitworth said.

The general consensus was that his lungs were severely injured, and I believe his vaping habits had a lot to do with it.

Two days after going home, he walked into my office for a follow-up visit. We had a very real, very brutal heart-to-heart.

I said, “Tryston, buddy…you know you could have died, right?” and he looked me in the eye and said “I’ll never touch the stuff again, Dr. Diane. And I want everyone to know that. I want to tell my story. And if I can just keep one kid from going through what I did, it’ll all be worth it.”

So here I am, telling you his story. Tryston is a great kid with a great heart. He made a mistake, one that LOTS of kids are making, because they assume e-cigarettes are “healthier” than regular cigarettes.

And Tryston wants us all to learn from it. Do me a favor and do what he has asked: print this out, and give it to your teenage son or daughter. Ask them to read it.

Let them know it’s just not worth it.

Learn More About This Topic:

• Vaping, Juuling, Dabbing (AAP Environmental Health) - Source for statistics in article
• New York Times: Dozens of Young People Hospitalized for Breathing and Lung Problems After Vaping
• Huffington Post: CDC Launches Probe Into Surge of Severe Lung Disease Cases Linked To Vaping
• Juul, Other E-Cigarettes Called an 'Epidemic' By FDA Chief
• E-Cigarettes Exposes Teens to Cancer-Causing Chemicals, Future Cigarette Smoking
• Adding flavors to e-cigarette liquids changes chemistry, creates irritants (Duke University)
• Tobacco Use Increases By More Than 38 Percent Among High School Students

For most of the first 20 years of his life, Michael Jankowiak never played ball or even owned a toy. His debilitating cerebral palsy wadded his fingers into a tight fist. He barely moved his hands, except to drive his electric wheel chair.

Then, during a visit to his neurologist, every changed. During a BOTOX® session at Cook Children’s, Fernando Acosta Jr., M.D., a neurologist at the Jane and John Justin Neurosciences Center, told Michael's mother, Lynn, that a surgeon on staff could possibly make a big difference in her son’s life.

Lynn was told Pamela Sherman, M.D., performed surgeries on children with disabilities. 

The original intent of the surgery was to help children clean the palms of their hand and aimed at improving hygiene for patient with significant contractures (the permanent tightening of muscles, tendons ligament or skin that results in a loss of motion in the affected joints).

But the sides effects were, as Lynn puts it, “pretty remarkable.”

Patients who need this surgery often demonstrate limited function with the contracted limb preoperatively. Things such as the ability to trim finger nails, avoid skin breakdown in the palm or elbow and the ease of nursing care with dressing, bathing and transferring to the wheel chair are the focus of surgical intervention. 

"Placing the upper extremity in a more functional position and releasing contractures often has a wonderful added benefit of improving use,” Dr. Sherman said. “Suddenly, the patient with previously limited spontaneous use of their limb has a hand that they are able to use to push a wheelchair control, use a communication board or hold an object.  A little goes a very long way for them.”

For the first time since he was a baby, Michael, who is now 24, opened up his left hand and played with a toy. Michael even held his own glass and brought it to his mouth to take a drink.

“This surgery has given him something new with his life,” Lynn said. “He has never been able to find a toy that he could play with. We took a golf-sized rubber ball. It’s elastic and put a rubber band on it. It looks like it came out of a gum ball machine. But when he’s playing with it, he grins from ear to ear. He can now even hold the ball and drops it for the dogs to play with him.”

After receiving a second surgery on his right hand that summer, Michael could now play on his iPad. He can swipe and select different videos to watch on YouTube.

What may have seemed so routine to most families has been nothing short of a miracle to Lynn because of how far her son has come.

Lynn described her first few months after she learned Michael had cerebral palsy as “fuzzy.” She lived in a terrified blur of emotions and cried for the first year after learning of his diagnosis.

But through her tears Lynn kept her resolve, beginning with one decision – Michael would be transferred from the family home in Abilene to Fort Worth to be treated by Cook Children’s. They then moved to Fort Worth to stay closer to Cook Children’s.

“To see your baby crawling, trying to learn to walk and then all of a sudden he’s not moving, was horrible,” Lynn said. “We insisted he be transferred. If he had not gotten transferred Michael would not be alive. I believe that with all my heart. I would not go anywhere else.”

The first month he stayed in the Pediatric ICU. Since then Michael has been seen by a plethora of specialties at Cook Children’s including Infectious Disease, Neurosciences, the Heart Center, Radiology, Surgery and Rehabilitation Services for issues ranging from pneumonia to cerebral palsy.

Michael stopped moving his extremities at 18 months and was diagnosed at that time.

Mark Shelton, M.D., was the physician on-call the day Michael first arrived at Cook Children’s. Dr. Shelton, a member of the Cook Children’s Physician Network, continues to be Michael’s primary care physician.

“Dr. Shelton, even though he is a specialist, I want him involved in everything,” Lynn said. “I trust him completely. I honestly think Dr. Shelton saved Michael’s life. He’s wonderful and so is his entire staff. He has such wonderful nurses. But all of Cook Children’s has such great nurses.”

Medical Director of Orthopedic Services David Gray, M.D., has also been there for Michael through multiple operative procedures associated with cerebral palsy.

“Dr. Gray is amazing. I remember him when he joined the Cook Children’s staff,” Lynn said. “A few years ago Michael broke his femur. When the ambulance came I told them I wasn’t going anywhere but Cook Children’s. Dr. Gray wasn’t on call that day, but somehow they got in touch with him and Dr. Gray managed to be there when we needed him.”

And now even today, after all this time, Lynn believes Cook Children’s works miracles for her son.

“It’s really the entire system,” Lynn said. “Everybody works so well together. It’s one of those places. I remember how I felt from the first time I walked in at 2 in the morning. It’s just comforting. You knew you were going to be treated well and your child was going to be taken care of by everyone.”