Dr. Velarde’s medical expertise includes epidemiology, statistics, pneumonia, and vitamin D. Dr. Velarde received his medical degree (M.D.) from University of San Carlos Faculty of Medicine, Guatemala, and was awarded a “First Place Promotion Externship of General Surgery in Hospital Roosevelt (2008) and First Place Promotion Internship Hospital Roosevelt (2009)”, graduating in 2010 in the top rank of his class; after graduating from medical school, Dr Velarde started working as a professor in the research unit of the faculty of medicine of the University of San Carlos where he gave classes and served as reviewer of many protocols and manuscripts of undergraduate students of the faculty of medicine, and then pursued his postgraduate studies in epidemiology through a scholarship from the NIH in the University of Pennsylvania United States where he had as a mentor Dr. Brian L. Strom (currently Chancellor in the Rutgers University in New Jersey), receiving the degree of master of science in clinical epidemiology in 2013, during his postgraduate studies Dr. Velarde gave a poster presentation in the Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases and Disorders Across the Lifespan: Fogarty International Research Training, NIH, Bethesda Maryland in March 21-23, 2012, and later on presented a poster in the 13th International Congress on Pediatric Pulmonology, Bruges, Belgium, June 26–29, 2014. Also, Dr Velarde worked for the pharmaceutical company AbbVie and assisted to present the AbbVie’s pipeline drugs protocols of studies phase 1, 2, 3 in rheumatology in the XIX Congress of the Pan American League of Associations for Rheumatology (PANLAR) in the Megapolis convention center in Panama during April 10-14, 2016. Also, Dr Velarde has worked in the unit of infectious diseases of the Hospital Roosevelt in Guatemala in the management of opportunistic mycosis of the lung in the immunosuppressed patients with HIV and the management of antiretroviral drugs and its resistant genotype. In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Velarde is active in medical research. His current research interests include outcome based research in pneumonia, vitamin D, and clinical epidemiology and statistics. He has a recent publication of pneumonia and vitamin D in the pediatric pulmonology Journal.

His current research interests include outcome based research in pneumonia, vitamin D, epidemiology and statistics.