Global Scholars: Dr. Arturo Zapata López

Zapata López: Growing Up in the Hospital

Long before he became a pediatric oncologist in his home country of Peru, one could say that Dr. Arturo Zapata López grew up in a hospital.

His mother worked as a nurse at the National Pediatric Institute, and Dr. Zapata would accompany her to work back when he was too young for school or to be left at home. At the time, there was a day care space at the institute for the children of hospital staff.

“My first memory in a hospital is me and my mother going to work,” he says now. “So I am very familiar with the hospital environment, with the nurses’ work, with the doctors’ activities. And I grew in this environment.”

Those moments with mom first put the field of medicine on Dr. Zapata’s radar. Another childhood memory then sharpened his focus on combating cancer. When he was in high school, his grandmother passed away from liver cancer. “I decided to become a doctor,” he says, “specifically, a doctor who fights cancer.”

It was a very personal start for a pediatric oncologist now working to fight cancer at a national and international level.

Dr. Zapata works as a pediatric oncologist at the National Cancer Institute in Lima, Peru. He also works as the Pediatric Leukemia Committee coordinator in Peru and assists with other local initiatives with the support of the Peruvian Ministry of Health.

His reach extends beyond his home country too. With mentorship from St. Jude, Dr. Zapata helped set up the POLA group (Pediatric Oncology Latin America) alongside representatives from countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay. Members of the group developed the first Latin American pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia protocol (or POLA-01).

“It’s interesting work because we are trying to adapt the current international protocol to our realities,” he says. “Because it’s different. The access to the drugs. The access to some diagnosis tools or some particular therapy, like bone transplants. Some countries don’t have access to this kind of therapy. So, with the support of [Dr. Sima Jeha] and other doctors at St. Jude, we are trying to adapt this protocol and establish homogeneous ways to treat these patients in our region, in Latin America.”

The work with POLA, and specifically with Dr. Jeha, helped put the Global Scholars Program on the radar for Dr. Zapata. He applied for the first time around 2019 but wasn’t among the 10 people selected that year.

“That was very hard news for me, because, in that time, I was very excited about the program,” he says. “Because I don’t want to be just like a doctor who treats patients. I like to see patients. I like examinations with my patients. I like to talk with the parents. But I think that more in countries like Peru, we need to try to do things with more impact. To try to improve — for example — the care of all the patients in my country with this diagnosis; not only the one patient who came to me to receive the therapy.

“So for this objective, we need more skills, we need more knowledge, not only in the medical field.”

So Dr. Zapata reached out to the Global Scholars Program, seeking more information about how he could enhance his skills and experience for the next time he applied. He then went to work — picking the brains of senior leaders, doing research, getting involved with international organizations, enhancing his collaboration and delegation, expanding his skill set beyond the medical field.

The next time around, he was accepted.

“I think that the program is a life experience program,” he says now. “It’s not only wonderful for the academics or the knowledge that you receive from the mentors. It’s amazing because [of] the kind of people who are part of this program. … I have friends from Ukraine, from Philippines, from China, from Brazil. We have different realities but share the same values, the same objectives.”

When it came time to plan his Scholars Project, Dr. Zapata dove into an area he’s concentrated on professionally: pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Specifically, he’s looking at the impact that the toxicities associated with cancer therapy have on the quality of life of these patients.

“The pediatric patient who receives chemotherapy usually experiences some toxicities related to the drugs,” he says. “For example, [they might] experience mucositis, experience neutropenia, experience pancreatitis, experience even seizures. … But the problem in low- and middle-income countries, first, is that there’s not official data published to show, for example, the frequency of these toxicities, the severity of this toxicity, in what moment of the therapy during these three years [it occurs].”

Dr. Zapata’s project is aimed at providing a better understanding of patients’ journeys with therapies and their potential toxicities.

As a first step, the project will follow a group of patients for 18 months after diagnosis. Dr. Zapata is hoping to establish data about the most common toxicities and then, eventually, to establish an intervention program to better identify and address toxicities at earlier stages.

“One of the most important reasons why I decided to work with the quality of life is because we have many patients who experience severe toxicity, and some of them continue with long-term damage,” he says. “But the institution doesn’t have a program to rehabilitate these patients. So it’s not fair for the patient not to receive a proper therapy. We are worrying more about the cure … but sometimes we forget that it’s important the quality of life as well.”

Expanding perspectives and changing perspectives became common themes throughout his two years in the Global Scholars program — offering another chance to grow in the field, for the doctor who grew up in hospitals.

“Usually for people who work in the health area, we have a very narrow vision because we work just with the patient, with the family,” he says. “But we forgot the other determinants of health that are important to know. We forgot the economy part. We forgot the political part. We forgot the relevance of working with international institutions. 

“And the other point of view — of your peers. … We have the opportunity to work in a study, or in collaboration, with people from other parts of the world. And that is an amazing opportunity to grow, to grow up in your professional field and offer better options for your patients.”