2023-10-29 09:55:00
He created the first clinic dedicated to psoriasis on the island, presides over the Puerto Rico Skin Foundation, and his years of teaching and service to the community have taken him to the pinnacle of dermatology.
By: Carolina González Quiceno
October 29, 2023
The Dr. José Ramón González Chávez leads diagnosing and researching on dermatology, fur and diseases since 1979 when he finished his specialty, although his degree at the Medical Sciences Campus of the University of Puerto Rico occurred in 1975. Since then, medical practice has been changing, as he assures “with all the technological and scientific advances.” but the truth is that his passion for medicine has never changed.
His story with education is that of hundreds of young people in Puerto Rico who go to public universities to fulfill their dreams, because otherwise, they would not have had the necessary resources to obtain a professional degree: “My family was not “I come from a high-income family and I truly had to make many sacrifices to be able to study both the High School and the University of Puerto Rico, but I feel proud to be the total product of the educational system of Puerto Rico,” he says.
Creation of the first psoriasis clinic in Puerto Rico
In 1980, Dr. González was in charge of starting the first intramural dermatological practices, where today is the Cardiovascular Hospital, thus becoming the first clinic of psoriasis that would be established in Puerto Rico.
With a great team, he developed the practice of phototherapy and sought to find the best possible management of the psoriasis. Over time and thanks to their absolute dedication, this “clinic” became the first specialized space for patients with psoriasiswhere until now, there were not many therapies, much less safe care for patients with conditions of the fur.
The vast dermatology needed to encompass more
“The psoriasis then it became the model for understanding immunological diseases, then it was developed in the same way for atopic dermatitis, and from there the first monoclonal antibodies began to be developed, which five years ago began to be integrated into the clinic,” adds the dermatologist with pride.
Dr. González’s legacy has gone beyond intramural and clinical practice. psoriasissince as he advanced with his practices and research, he saw the need to create within this space, 11 more subspecialties for dermatology which included rheumatoderma, lymphoma furacne, surgery and others, giving the same residents the ability to learn and have more resources to recognize all the diseases that affect the fursince in a single day, they could care for dozens of patients with different conditions.
The heart transplant that helped recognize the immunology of psoriasis
In 1992, at a university in New York, scientists began investigating the immunity of psoriasis and they realized that the immunological defect was a process that began in the lymphocytes and not particularly in the fur. In fact, Dr. González says that when a patient underwent a heart transplant, a medication called Ciclosporin was used, which is an immunosuppressant and “the strong thing was that the patients who received this medication were removed the psoriasis“. Why and what implications would this have for better understanding such a particular condition?
Well, as Dr. González says, the great thing about the topic is that the immunology of the psoriasis when the heart transplant begins: “It’s incredible because all our lives we understood that psoriasis “It’s a disease of the epidermis.”
The patient who could not be cured is the one who has promoted him the most in his career
As a great teacher and health professional, his passion for teaching, helping and healing is the pillar of what he does every day. During all these years, Dr. González has been able to perfect treatments and clinical diagnosis of diseases of the fur through the extensive formal research he has done in the area of dermatologyHowever, despite this heavy legacy, he still keeps in his memory the patient that he could not cure and that always drives him to look for new alternatives to try to help each one.
In the 80s, Dr. González remembers that he met a patient of psoriasis who was one of the first to bring fireworks to Puerto Rico. For a long time, they managed to establish a strong friendship and one day, reading the press, he found out that the fireworks factory had exploded. When he went to visit his friend and patient, he managed to say something that he has never been able to leave behind: “After having been on fire all over my body, that had been the only moment where I no longer felt the psoriasis“.
Moments later, the patient died. And this story marked him so much that he remembers him as the patient he could not save and like a mantra, he relates it to his mission in life and something that defines him as a professional and a person: helping until a solution is found.
The three fundamental advances in medicine for Dr. González Chavez
Being a man of science, classrooms and medicine, it is impossible for him not to compare the decade of the 70’s, when he began his medical practice, with the present. Astonished and admired by the multiple treatments that dermatologists and other medical specialists have available today, he highlights 3 fundamental pillars that, as he explains, have been watersheds or “milestones” for medicine:
Development of the human genome: because it has made it possible to identify genetic issues and recognize which protein is truncating some diseases whose cause was previously unknown.
He development of monoclonal antibodies in the 90s, which has allowed the pharmaceutical industry to advance and there are more medications to treat diseases such as psoriasis and has even allowed experimentation with new therapies.
He advance in immunology knowledgewhere particularly in cellular immunity, it has been possible to understand the complex immune system.
Recognized by the Senate of Puerto Rico in 2023 thanks to his contribution to atopic dermatitis
Dr. González, this year in the month of September was decorated and honored by the Senate of Puerto Rico on World Atopic Dermatitis Day, where the National Atopic Dermatitis Awareness Day was also celebrated for the first time on the island. , established by Law 83 of 2022, which is committed to increasing awareness about this condition that affects several people on the island and globally, just as the doctor has been doing for more than 40 years in Puerto Rico, with thousands of patients treated with love, understanding, commitment and absolute respect
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