Melinda Rullan-Varela, MD

My name is Melinda Rullan-Varela, MD. I am board certified in Palliative and Hospice Care, Critical Care Medicine and Internal Medicine. I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of Puerto Rico Piedras Campus and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a major in Biology. I earned my medical degree from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. I completed my internal medicine residency at the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine and my fellowship in Critical care Medicine from New York Medical College at St. Vincent Hospital in Manhattan.

I participated in the EPIC training with the “Death in America” project from the University of Wisconsin – a project to understand and transform the culture and experience of dying and bereavement through initiatives in research, scholarship, the humanities, and the arts – which later transformed into a Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship. I am proud to be a fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, and in my spare time I enjoy learning about Artificial Intelligence and walking on the beach with my full-size Doberman Pinscher, Axel. Exotic orchid cultivation has been a hobby of mine for the past 20 years, and also practice Ashtanga Yoga.