Tellez-Giron herself says that the decision to go to medical school was a calling, not a choice. Her experience as an immigrant to the United States, as well as her continued work with minority patients, has led her to not only continue to care for patients herself, but to educate others on how to care for the underserved. Tellez-Giron has worked in the university setting to diversify clinic personnel in order better to serve her patient population.
She has also been very active in the Latino community. She is the co-chair of the Latino Health Council of Dane County, and has been instrumental in organizing very important community initiatives such as health fairs, community conferences and health education Spanish-language radio programs.
Finally, she works with high school, undergraduate and medical students, educating them about entering the health professions. In his nomination, Kushner notes that Tellez-Giron has “stretched not only me, but my clinic and department, to be sensitive to ethnic and cultural issues.”
Raised in Mexico City, Dr. Tellez-Giron received her medical degree, with honors, at the National University of Mexico (UNAM). She moved to the United States in 1993 to be with her family and to continue her education, and ever since has been working very actively with the Latino/a community of Madison. She completed the University of Wisconsin Family Medicine Residency program and soon after graduation joined the Faculty of same program and is now an associate professor.
Her clinical practice is at the Wingra Clinic where more than 90% of her patients speak only Spanish. She is the chair of the Latino Health Council in Madison and under her leadership several annual community initiatives have been started including the Latino Health Fair, Latino Chronic Disease Summit, Latino Mental Health summit and a Latino health teen bash. She is also the medical director and main presenter of a monthly health education Spanish radio program in the local Spanish radio station.
Dr. Tellez- Giron has received multiple awards, including the public health award for community advocacy for her work with the Latina community and the Wisconsin Well Women program in 2000. She also has been awarded the AIDS Network Executive Director’s Award for Outstanding Community HIV/AIDS Service in 2004 and the Faculty Excellence Award for Community Service also in 2004. In 2005 received the “Wisconsin Family of the Year Award” (UMOS, Governor, Mayor) and in 2007, the UW Family Medicine Department Mark Hansen, M.D. Lectureship Award. In 2008 she was named a UW-Madison Outstanding Women of Color award and most recently the 2011 City-County Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award for Dane County/Madison, Wisconsin.
Dr. Tellez-Giron has also presented cultural rounds to Health professionals working with the Latino/a Community at various organizations and hospitals local and at the national level.
She is married and is a proud mother of a 7 year old girl.