Dr. Veronica Alvarez-Galiana ’15 doesn’t just treat patients; she fights to change the systems that shape their health.
For Alvarez-Galiana, advocacy is not extra work; it is core to being a physician. As a former American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists McCain Advocacy Fellow and an active ACOG and Miami-Dade Medical Association member, the FIU Medicine alumna has helped expand postpartum Medicaid coverage to one year and secured improved Medicare access to critical treatments such as progesterone IUDs for women with abnormal bleeding.
A Miami native with Cuban roots, Alvarez-Galiana first dreamed of becoming a doctor at age 14 after a conversation with her father about her strengths in biology and her passion for helping others. A few years later, she was attending the University of Miami for her undergraduate studies when a Miami Herald article highlighting FIU Medicine’s community-centered focus caught her mother’s attention. After reading the piece, Alvarez[1]Galiana decided to join FIU on its mission. She was accepted into the college’s third class and graduated in 2015.
As a student, the Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP program proved transformative. She supported a Haitian family struggling after the 2010 earthquake, helping them navigate health crises and food insecurity. Then, during an OB/GYN rotation, she coached her first delivery. The experience sealed her specialty choice.
“It was the most incredible feeling,” she says. “I still tear up thinking about it.
”After completing residency at Emory University in Atlanta, Alvarez-Galiana returned to South Florida. Family support for her young children and a deep commitment to serving the city’s immigrant and low-income communities guided her home. Shortly after, she launched the first group prenatal care program in Miami.
Today, she balances clinical practice with teaching at her alma mater as an assistant professor of OB/GYN. She’s also been appointed program director for the new FIU/Baptist Health Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency, starting in July 2027, and is pursuing an MBA. The business training, she says, equips her to speak the language of administrators and advocate more effectively for patients and physicians.
Alvarez-Galiana credits FIU with embedding the values that drive her work. She urges current medical students to embrace advocacy early.
Her first delivery sealed her career choice. "It was the most incredible feeling."