Executive Committee

Dr. Zalamea is Associate Director of the Center for Multicultural and Global Health and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at UTHSC. She is the Director of the UT Global Surgery Institute which allows her to help guide the next generation of surgeons while providing them with the opportunity to learn about service, medicine, and surgery. She is also the Director of the Herbert Shainberg Scholars program – a senior medical student exchange program between UTHSC and Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.

Dr. Zalamea has a long history of medical work overseas and in underserved communities with her family not-for-profit Memphis Mission of Mercy, formed in 1999. After 5 years of balancing small-town practice in Virginia and an annual surgical and medical mission work overseas, she came home to Memphis to serve at a local non-profit for three years prior to joining UTHSC.

While her short-term annual work with Memphis Mission of Mercy continues, she is leading the group in partnering with local and international entities for the establishment of a long term charitable surgical center in the Philippines. She is also very involved in championing global surgery at the national level. She has been involved in the establishment of the Association for Academic Global Surgery and is a member of the Association for Academic Surgery, the American College of Surgeons, SAGES and is active in teaching laparoscopy internationally via SAGES Go Global.

Dr. Dalgo is Associate Director of the Center for Multicultural and Global Health and a non-tenure track Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Palliative Care at UTHSC. His primary role is as Director for the Center for Bioethics and Health Equity (CBHE). He is a nationally certified healthcare ethics consultant (HCE-C) and performs numerous clinical ethics consultations throughout the year. Since becoming the director of the CBHE in July 2019, he continues to perform strategic planning, administrative, educational, and consultative functions in this role.

His secondary roles are as clinician-educator in the area of palliative care, medical director of the Wellness and Stress Clinic, academic general pediatrics hospitalist, med-peds consultant, and global health GME liaison. In his palliative care role, he performs inpatient and outpatient consults, home visits, and is on call 24 hours a day for 8-10 weeks per year. He is the senior associate program director for the hospice and palliative medicine fellowship which takes 5 fellows per year. He also teaches medical students, residents, fellows, and faculty as part of his daily rounds and has organized a systematized curriculum for the palliative care fellowship.