Dr. Rosa Elena Cifuentes Pac

Dr. Rosa Elena Cifuentes Pac is a dedicated paediatrician at Hospital General San Juan de Dios, Guatemala's largest and oldest public referral hospital, located in Guatemala City. With 16 years of clinical experience, she has developed deep expertise in the paediatric conditions most prevalent in Guatemala, including protein-energy malnutrition, acute diarrheal and respiratory diseases, dengue fever, and neonatal illness. What distinguishes Dr. Cifuentes Pac is her rare trilingual ability — she communicates fluently in Spanish, English, and Kaqchikel Maya, one of Guatemala's most widely spoken indigenous Maya languages. This enables her to provide culturally sensitive care to Mayan families from the western highlands and other rural regions who travel to Guatemala City for specialist paediatric treatment, often with limited Spanish proficiency. Her position at Hospital General San Juan de Dios places her at the centre of Guatemala's public health system, where she manages high patient volumes and complex presentations that reflect the breadth of child health challenges in Central America's most populous nation. She is an active member of the Asociación Guatemalteca de Pediatría and the Latin American Pediatric Association.

Dr. Cifuentes Pac completed her undergraduate medical training at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC), the country's primary public university and a central institution in Guatemalan medical education. She completed her paediatric residency at Hospital General San Juan de Dios, receiving hands-on training in a high-volume referral environment that exposed her to the full spectrum of childhood illness in Guatemala, including conditions rare in higher-income settings such as severe acute malnutrition and complicated dengue. She undertook additional training in neonatology and paediatric infectious disease, with short-term placements at paediatric centres in Mexico and Costa Rica. Her language skills were developed through formal Kaqchikel studies undertaken as part of an outreach initiative to improve healthcare access for Maya communities. She maintains her professional development through annual attendance at the Latin American Congress of Paediatrics and national continuing education programmes run by the Asociación Guatemalteca de Pediatría.

Dr. Cifuentes Pac's clinical work at Hospital General San Juan de Dios encompasses preventive care and acute illness management across all paediatric age groups. She conducts well-child assessments that include growth monitoring, developmental screening, and nutritional evaluation — critical in a country where chronic malnutrition affects a significant proportion of children, particularly in rural indigenous communities. She manages the national vaccination schedule and provides catch-up immunisation for children who missed routine vaccines. In acute care settings, she diagnoses and treats severe acute malnutrition using therapeutic feeding protocols, manages children with complicated diarrheal disease requiring rehydration and antibiotic therapy, and provides intensive care for children with severe respiratory infections including pneumonia. She is experienced in the clinical management of dengue fever across its spectrum from uncomplicated to severe dengue with plasma leakage and haemorrhage. Her neonatal care experience includes assessment and stabilisation of newborns with low birth weight, neonatal sepsis, and respiratory distress. For children presenting with suspected malignancies, she coordinates appropriate referral pathways within the national healthcare system.

Dr. Cifuentes Pac has contributed to clinical and public health research focused on child health in Guatemala. Her work has examined malnutrition prevalence and treatment outcomes in indigenous children referred to Hospital General San Juan de Dios, as well as dengue severity patterns across paediatric age groups during epidemic seasons in Guatemala City. She has participated in WHO and PAHO-linked surveillance programmes monitoring rotavirus diarrhea and pneumococcal disease in Guatemalan children. Her research findings have been presented at national paediatric conferences and shared with the Guatemalan Ministry of Health to inform child nutrition and vaccination policy. She is a strong advocate for community outreach programmes targeting Mayan communities, and her trilingual capacity has enabled her to participate directly in rural health promotion activities in the Chimaltenango and Sacatepéquez departments.

Hospital General San Juan de Dios is Guatemala's principal public referral hospital and a key destination for families across Central America seeking specialist paediatric care. Dr. Cifuentes Pac is equipped to communicate with English-speaking families and can provide clinical documentation in English. She offers video consultations for families outside Guatemala City wishing to discuss a child's condition before travelling for in-person assessment. Her Kaqchikel Maya language skills are especially valuable for families from Guatemala's western highlands, bridging a longstanding communication barrier in the healthcare system. Families travelling internationally for paediatric consultations with Dr. Cifuentes Pac should contact Hospital General San Juan de Dios directly to arrange an appointment and obtain guidance on the referral process for public hospital access.

Dr. Cifuentes Pac is recognised within the Guatemalan paediatric community for her commitment to equitable child healthcare. Her trilingual clinical practice and her engagement with rural Mayan communities have earned her acknowledgement from the Asociación Guatemalteca de Pediatría for advancing culturally appropriate healthcare delivery. She has been commended within Hospital General San Juan de Dios for her contributions to neonatal care protocols and her leadership in malnutrition management training for junior residents. Her work reflects a dedication to reducing child health disparities in one of Latin America's most ethnically diverse nations.