Montserrat Hernandez-Garcia, MD

Montserrat Hernandez-Garcia is a Program Manager, SJCARES Registry for the department of Global Pediatric Medicine. Montserrat is a Pediatric Oncologist with a high specialty in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT). She earned her MD and completed her residency and fellowships at Instituto Nacional de Pediatria, Mexico. After that, Montserrat trained at Boston Children’s Hospital/Dana Farber Cancer Institute with a focus on improving pediatric oncology and HSCT quality of care in Mexico, her home country, where she worked as one of the founders of Hospital Infantil Teleton de Oncologia (HITO). There, she pioneered and led a successful HSCT Program that is a national referral center. Monteserrat worked actively with multidisciplinary teams, and national and international partners to facilitate oncologic patient complex care including timely access to target therapy and international donor registries.

Her work through the implementation of pediatric oncology and HSCT point-of-care clinical protocols in a LMIC setting allowed her to better understand the need to have access to high-quality research to improve patient outcomes and strengthen hospitals. She has also served as Ethics Committee President in Mexico and participated in collaborative research studies to improve pediatric oncology /HSCT local quality of care, from diagnostics and risk stratification tools (like implementation and validation of minimal residual disease by flow cytometry in pediatric acute leukemias) to innovative therapeutic approaches like haploidentical transplants in LMIC Setting.

Montserrat knows that improving access to quality research with quality data in an ethical and collaborative environment is key to accelerating science and improving pediatric oncology outcomes worldwide, especially in LMIC where the childhood cancer burden is high and the access to new therapies through clinical trials is needed.

“Ensuring children have access to quality care and treatment no matter where they live” is a phrase that has a special meaning for her.