Professor Mejia was presented with the 2023 Pioneer Award for the ISN OSEA region at the 43rd Annual Convention of the Philippine Society of Nephrology on April 27, 2023. See one of the videos from the presentation HERE
Agnes D. Mejia
Pioneer Award: ISN Ocenia & South East Asia region
The ISN Pioneer Awards honor the ‘unsung heroes’ of nephrology: doctors who have made extraordinary efforts to advance nephrology in a specific country or region. Without their dedication, nephrology would be far behind its current state in their home country.
Professor Emeritus Agnes Dominguez Mejia graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Medicine (UPCM) in 1977. She then finished her residency in internal medicine at the Philippine General Hospital. She completed a three-year fellowship in nephrology under Dr. Victor Pollack at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, and a three-year fellowship in hypertension under Dr. Stevo Julius at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. Professor Mejia joined the UPCM Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, in 1990, capped by her deanship from 2012-2018.
She was the Dr. Gloria T. Aragon Most Illustrious Faculty Awardee in 2017, the Philippine College of Physicians Distinguished Internist in 2021, and is currently a Professor Emeritus. The highlight of her academic leadership was receiving the ASEAN University Network-Quality Assurance (AUN-QA) Certification for the quality of its basic medical education program in 2018, the first and only medical school in the Philippines to receive this distinction.
As an ISN Pioneer Award winner, she comments, “As a nephrologist, I continued to serve our society through the lens of a teacher, an internist. I set my eyes on the future of our profession as I watched students “get set” at their starting blocks. Looking back, I was fortunate to be with these junior nephrologists – learning need not always be inspired by the sublime, even these young fellows could be sources of wisdom.”