Fueled by personal experience, Maribel Baker leads Medtronic’s diabetes business toward improving health equity.
At 15 years old, Maribel Baker’s life was in the balance.
While growing up in Panama, Baker had to undergo leg surgery because she was born with one leg shorter than the other. Following the surgery, she learned that she had a staph infection. Doctors wanted to amputate the infected leg, but Baker’s parents fought for an opportunity in front of the Medical Board of Panama to bring their daughter to the U.S. for surgery, earning a grant to have the operation in Miami.
After her first surgery in Miami, Baker told Drug Delivery Business News that she was “so weak” as her mother attempted to tell the nurse something was wrong. English was the second language of Baker and her family and there was some miscommunication, but the nurse at the time denied anything was amiss. Overnight, Baker’s mother did not sleep, waiting for a new nurse shift to begin. When it did, the new nurse found internal bleeding. Baker was rushed to the ICU and received several pints of blood to save her life.
“If my parents wouldn’t have been determined to ask more questions in Panama, I would have lost my leg,” Baker said. “If my mom wouldn’t have been on top of the minute of that the nurse shift change, I would have died.”
Today, Baker is the director of health equity at Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) Diabetes. She spearheads an effort at the medtech giant to address serious inequities in diabetes care to ensure that people get the treatment they need.
Get the full story at our sister site, Drug Delivery Business News.