Originally from Colombia, Dr. Alfredo Lopez-Yunez completed his core medical training at the Javeriana University School of Medicine and at the National University of Colombia-Institute of Clinical Genetics in 1991 before moving to the United States to complete his internship, residency and further training.
Since the beginning of his medical training, Dr. Lopez has been passionate to combine his medical practice with continuous education and community work. Very early n his career, when he was working on his Masters in Genetics at the National University in Colombia, he participated with his mentor Edmond Yunis in several genetic research studies in poor communities, and he thought that the medical and research work had to leave something to the communities to really achieve a comprehensive benefit.
From there he always makes sure that in his academic, medical or community work, leaves something to the communities around the programs in the form or health fairs, medical facilities, equipment or training for local medical staff, generating progress that last in the communities beyond the timeline of specific programs. This social-focused mentality has driven Dr. Lopez to participate as volunteer, leader or board member for several non-profit organizations that gave him the opportunity to start initiatives, mentor younger students in many different fields and help entire communities not only in the United States but also internationally.
Academic Work
After completing his core medical school and Masters in Genetics in Colombia, Dr. Lopez moved to the United States to continue his training. He started
in 1993 and started with his medical internship in Internal Medicine at the Ravenswood Hospital in Chicago, IL. There he also developed a program to prevent STD’s among Latino population. For this work, he received the Burroughs Wellcome Award among students nationwide.
The he started his residency in Neurology at Loyola University, also in Chicago. Along his medical work he also focused in academic publications like a Research of Neuronal Recovery After Stroke for which he traveled to Boston to make a presentation on this topic that remains applicable nowadays.
In 1997 Dr. Lopez moved to Indianapolis, IN and started to work with the Indiana University School of Medicine where he served as an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Stroke Unit of Wishard Hospital (now Eskenazi).
Later in 2001 Lopez started Alivio Medical Center where he is the Director and also the Neurology specialist.
He was one of the principal investigators for the Indiana Health Study, a research program that studies the population of Indiana in order to learn more about common diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
He has published over 40 medical articles in the fields of neuroscience and neurology, and serves as a reviewer for several international medical journals.
Back in 1993 when Dr. Lopez moved to Indiana, he started working as a volunteer on a radio show with the Education Superintendent of Indiana Esperanza Zendejas. On this broadcast, Spanish-speaking patients would call with health related questions and Dr. Lopez provided guidance for them to look for medical services.
Through this volunteer opportunity, Lopez met Sister Mary Kay Duffy who was involved with the Hispanic Education Center that later merged with La Plaza. An organization that developed programs to assist Hispanic families in central Indiana, and Dr. Lopez started to work with programs to educate parents about non-violent ways to raise children and to apply the principles of the Martin Luther King Jr. rights proposals to the Hispanic community of Indianapolis.
Later he was invited the board of directors of the American Heart Association because of his experience in stroke that was related to the cerebrovascular and cardiovascular field. There, Dr. Lopez was the
Chairman of their Gold Dinner, which is their biggest fundraising event. From this role Dr. Lopez had the opportunity to work with Dr. Jerry Smartt who was one of Dr. Lopez residents at the time and they developed a program to bring awareness of blood pressure management in Africa- American Churches. That project led Dr. Smartt to receive an award at Indiana University for his work on a scientific study with social impact.
Dr. Lopez started to work with
programs to
educate parents
about non-violent ways to raise
children and to
apply the principles of the Martin
Luther King Jr.
rights proposals to the Hispanic community of Indianapolis.
Dr. Lopez brought the programs of the American Diabetes Association to the Hispanic community of central Indiana through his own practice, Alivio Medical Center. At the beginning he and his staff helped to coordinate educational and disease management programs in Indianapolis, but later he extended to reach communities with limited or no access to medical services or other social services due to language limitations, and he begun to bring mobile clinics and health fairs to other towns like Elkhart, Warsaw, Fort
Wayne, Bloomington, Seymour, Lafayette, Richmond and more recently opening a new clinic in Columbus Indiana.
He was later invited to join the Board of Directors of the Indiana chapter of the American Diabetes Association where he led an in initiative to include the Hispanic community in the ADA outreach efforts. From there many programs were originated like Conferencia, where the Spanish-Speaking community of Indianapolis had access to education and awareness programs to prevent Type 2 Diabetes by improving nutrition habits while taking into consideration the cultural particularities of the Hispanic community, and increase participation
of Hispanic patients in research studies and physical activities like Tour the Cure and the annual walk to stop Diabetes. Thanks to his participation, many Latinos had access to information through different platforms like radio, printed materials and both preventive information and to manage diabetes trough optimized online resources for the Hispanic community.
The work with the ADA was so successful that he was invited to be part of the national Board of Directors in the Diversity and Inclusion Division. There he was able to influence the core structure of this organization
to include other ethnic groups. This was a great contributions considering that Hispanic and African- American communities are at a greater risk to develop type-2 diabetes.
In the year 2007, Janet Michel from Bridges of Hope International, invited Dr. Alfredo Lopez to help with contacts for this organization to travel to Cartagena, Colombia, and Lopez got engaged immediately with the work of this starting a participation in medical missions that has been going on for over a decade. With Bridges of Hope, Dr. Lopez participated in missions to bring medical services to places with incredible levels of poverty. Each year they will bring over 2,500 free medical consultations, gynecology consultations, optometry, eyeglasses donations, plastic and orthopedic surgery, pain management and many other services. Dr. Lopez contributed with neurology services but also donated equipment and medications from his own private practice.
Keeping in line with his constant efforts to leave the communities with benefits even after the missions left, Lopez always led the efforts to provide high quality medical training to service providers in those cities, on new techniques, and donate medical equipment to local facilities. One of the beneficiaries of this effort was the Rafael Calvo Women and Maternity Hospital that received a laparoscopy equipment that was key help them perform laparoscopic instead of open surgeries reducing infection and other risks. This donation came also with the training to local surgeons to use the equipment.
Dr. Lopez also trained Colombian neurologists about sleep medicine and donated a polysomnography equipment to the Children’s Hospital to help them diagnose more precisely and treat children with sleep apnea.
Thanks to the work on medical missions, Dr. Lopez was introduced to a Colombian institution called Actuar por Bolivar (Action for Bolivar). He was immediately
so motivated by the work of this organization that he says he will remain committed to this cause and organization as long as he can. He helped them to develop a childcare center to serve 250 children from working single mothers. This center offers English classes and non-violence education while the mothers receive small-business training and support
to help them become self-sufficient end poverty. This organization allows these women to work and improve their situation without having to worry about their children while they work.
Right now Dr. Lopez through the non-profit organization SADCO, is helping Actuar por Bolivar
develop a new program to offer continuity to the children once they leave the child center so the efforts of the education they received in the early years don’t disappear.
The Sociedad Amigos de Colombia SADCO (Friends of Colombia Society), has been another organization where Dr. Lopez has participated since the year 2000. He has been part of the board for over 17 years and has been also president of the board. With SADCO Dr. Lopez has participated in their different programs to provide low-income students with scholarships, bring high-quality cultural events from Latin America to create awareness of the cultural diversity of our communities, coordinate educational and professional exchanges to allow students to come to the Unites States and learn from the American educational system and professional fields, helping people in need, that would fundraise to help local people and organization with specific financial challenges. With these programs organizations and churches like Our
Lady of Mt. Carmel or Santa Maria were able to extend programs to people needing immediate help.
With the help of other SADCO members and leaders, Dr. Lopez contributed to take this organization to a level of visibility and respect in the Indiana community.
In 2011 Dr. Lopez decided to bring to life a dream that he had since he was 19 years old. To develop a software to prevent falls seniors or patients with
mobility challenges. Lopez saw that the way to bring this idea to life was to invest in young talent so he called brother and sister engineers Diana and Andres Vasquez to start developing this project and the model that came out of this endeavor was the first stone to create the non-profit organization Health and Science Innovations.
Dr. Lopez joined forces with community and education leaders to create this organization that seeks to motivate young students to feel excited about science and innovation and help them bring to life ideas that would respond to the challenges of the world.
In 2012 Health and Science Innovations started with its first program Young Innovators Quest YiQ, a summer camp that would allow a group of high
school students to receive training in STEM areas and develop their own projects with the help of high- level scientists, engineers and educators facilitating networking, problem solving skills and career counseling. From this initiative have emerged brilliant students that are award-winning engineers and scientists and national presentation in Johns Hopkins University, Chicago University and IUPUI.
Health and Science Innovations has grown to be a leading organization with multiple programs that seek to help K-12 students to improve their lives
through innovation and education, and with their work contribute to solve the problems of the world.
One of the most recent programs from Health and Science Innovations is IDEAA, an initiative to help low income individuals who are not engaged with the traditional education system to provide skill focused training to help them enter the workforce.
Also in 2012, when Indianapolis was the host of the NFL Super Bowl XLVI, Lopez was invited to be part of the main board of this event in Indianapolis. Dr. Lopez recognizes this opportunity as a learning experience to work on projects of the highest quality. He worked hand by hand with other leaders like John Lechleiter, former CEO of Eli Lilly, the Simon family and Mark Miles who was the president of the board. Dr. Lopez worked on many initiatives but he wanted to make sure the minority groups of the city would participate in programs that would leave a long lasting benefit
to their communities through this event. With that intention in mind, he helped coordinate the Super Cure, a large initiative to motivate women to participate in a massive breast tissue donation event to help the Susan
G. Komen Breast Tissue Bank. Lopez worked hard to include donors from minority ethnic groups so all the efforts to find a cure for breast cancer would include vital genetic information from Latino women, as well as Asian and African-American patients.
With all the changes that the medical system has been experiencing, the access to medical care seems is harder every day, especially for minorities with low income and limited or no access to medical insurance. The waiting time for appointments is long, customer service is often an issue, and the quality of the service sometimes doesn’t satisfy patient’s expectations.
With those challenges on mind, Dr. Lopez decided to open his own practice in 2001: Alivio Medical Center is a multiservice clinic located in the East side of Indianapolis. Alivio seems to aim to provide a great experience to its patients from every possible angle.
Alivio Medical Center offers same day and scheduled appointments, which makes this place very convenient for all kinds of medical needs regardless the urgency, so the patients don’t have to experience long waits until an appointment is available, sometimes when they don’t need the medical attention anymore. This is a great advantage because many times people avoid expensive and delayed visits to the emergency room for complaints that can be taken care in a medical center.
Alivio is also very conveniently located in the east side of Indianapolis, accessible even for patients from other areas since this intersection is right next to the exit of I-70 and I-465.
But the main reason for the patients to come back is the customer experience. For Alivio patients, everybody is family. They will get not only the smile
that they deserve, but they can really tell that the staff cares about them. They go beyond medical complaints and aim to improve the wellness in a comprehensive way. All the staff, from customer service, to medical is fully bilingual in English and Spanish, which makes a team of caring people that offers a great experience.
Dr. Lopez says that the power of personalized medicine, an honest caring service and the capability to have different specialties under the same room, with the doctors communicating closely to make the best decisions possible for each patient, becomes the best possible care that a patient can expect. And they have many successful stories from patients that support that statement.
Other advantage of Alivio is the affordability. They work with most of the private insurance plans, but they aim to serve the uninsured community with prices without comparison. Besides, they have a discount program without any eligibility requirement that could reduce the costs significantly.
Alivio offers services of family medicine, neurology, physical therapy, laboratory, x rays, ultrasounds, nutrition, sleep clinic, phlebology, mental health, diabetes care, gynecology, internal medicine, endocrinology, pharmacy, dental care, orthodontics, a medical spa and a comprehensive addiction rehab center that covers both the mental health and the medical needs of the patients.
Alivio has a strong community outreach program. As the practice grows, they have identified the need to reach other areas with limited medical service options and the practice continuously serves many areas in Indiana through mobile clinics and health fairs.
Under the same mission to provide quality medical services to the Indiana community, Alivio Medical
Center responded to the request of its patients from the area of Columbus, Seymour, Edinburgh, Nashville, Franklin and other towns south of Indianapolis and close to highway 65.
Dr. Alfredo Lopez noticed that many patients had to travel more than one hour to Indianapolis to be able to get quality medical services in their own language due to limited services in that area.
For that reason he decided to open a new clinic near to those patients, not only to provide the health services they were needing, but also the convenience of being close to their homes and places of work.
Alivio Columbus opened its doors to the patients on November 7, 2017.
This clinic provides services of general medicine, electrocardiograms, laboratory and ultrasounds. Same as the Indianapolis clinic, Alivio will focus on providing the best medical care to patients with or without insurance with the greatest service that identifies Alivio for over 15 years delivering a true sense of Alivio which in Spanish means relief.
Alivio has a strong community outreach program. As the
practice grows, they have
identified the need to reach other areas with limited
medical service options and the practice continuously
serves many areas in Indiana through mobile clinics and
health fairs.
Recognitions
Dr. Lopez has been recognized for his academic and medical work and also for his community efforts. As a student he graduated top of the class from his core medical training at the Javeriana Univerity and was always 99% for over 4 years of his advanced medical training.
Some of medical publications like Retrospective Assessment of Initial Stroke Severity With the NIH Stroke Scale have been cited 357 times and Protocol Violations in Community-Based rTPA Stroke Treatment Are Associated With Symptomatic Intracerebral Hemorrhage has been cited 190 times according to Google Scholar.
In 1994 he received the national recognition Burroughs Wellcome Award for Resident Physicians for his work at Ravenswood Hospital in Chicago developing a program to prevent STD’s among Hispanics.
In 2003 he won the first place as mentor for annual research paper Department of Neurology and Internal Medicine for his work on “Transcranial Doppler evaluation of intracranial pressure in fulminant hepatic failure”-Author Esgi Tiryaki, MD.
In 2004 he was awarded as one of Indiana’s “Best and Brightest” in health care category.
He received the Leadership Fellowship Award in 2006 by the National Hispanic Medical Association.
On September 1st 2016, Dr. Alfredo Lopez received the “Council of the Sagamores of the Wabash” Award at the Indiana Latino Institute Annual Luncheon.
The Sagamore of the Wabash is an honorary award created by the U.S. state of Indiana during the term of Governor Ralph F. Gates (1945 to 1949). The award honors Indiana’s most distinguished citizens who have rendered exceptional service to the state or to the governor. This was Governor Gates’ inspiration in 1942 to bestow the honor: “To enlist our best minds and talents to make Indiana better.”
Dr. Lopez received the Sagamore of the Wabash for his work in the community, his humanity in living, his loyalty in friendship, his wisdom in council and his inspiration in leadership.