Dr. Daniel Olivero, whose family is from Dominican Republic, grew up in a South Bronx housing project. It was a place where parents’ aspirations for their children were basic—stay alive and don’t join a gang. He has, by all measures, wildly surpassed those modest expectations.

“After undergrad, I worked for four years in a very comfortable, but very boring, office job,” Dr. Olivero explained, “I was bored and wanted an intellectual challenge, so I decided to go to med school in Dominican Republic.” It was a decision that brought him this welcomed challenge and his life’s passion. Dedicated to the health and wellness of infants and children, Dr. Olivero is a board-certified pediatrician and has served on the Board of Directors of the Lewisburg Children’s Museum as chair of health education. Dr. Olivero is dually board certified in addiction Medicine and is the only pediatric expert recognized as a specialist in addiction Medicine in the service area. He treats all pediatric age groups as early as newborns suffering from Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome up to adolescents 21-years of age.

Early in his career, a colleague and pediatrician recommended locums work to him. Locums Doctors help with staffing shortages caused by vacations, vacancies and seasonal outbreaks.  Dr. Olivero says of his initial foray into this field, “I enjoyed my first assignment, and decided to continue.”

What Dr. Olivero has observed as a Physician who has worked in many different settings, is the varied manner in which electronic medical records (EMRs) are compiled. He notes,  “No one EMR does everything perfectly because, as I learned, they are developed by computer professionals, not health care professionals and therefore do not understand why (or how) EMRs ought to work in a way that makes the workflow efficient and complies with government requirements.  Sometimes, it’s just easier to invest the time in learning a new skill (software development) and create a custom solution yourself, from scratch.”

It is the kind of “can do” response one would expect to hear from a Physician who seems to be always coming up with new ways to connect with his Patients.

It’s a habit he developed as early as when he was a third-year pediatric resident working at Lincoln Hospital, the same hospital where he was born. At that time, he was participating in the Family Health Challenge, an 8-week program created by the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) conducting weekly nutrition and fitness lessons at PS 18, a school in the least healthy county in New York State and the same school he attended as a child.

At the time, Dr. Olivero was featured in an article on the CIR website to promote the Family Health Challenge. It was clear that he benefited from his 8-week experience as much as the children he instructed.  “It was incredible,” he enthused. “During my first visit to PS 18 we had the kids break up into small groups and I led the group that my son was in. We started talking about nutrition and out of nowhere my son turned to me and said, ‘Dad, I want to be strong just like you when I grow up.’”

Today, Dr. Olivero reaches out to children to promote positive life choices anyway he can. He authored a children’s book “Toes, Knees, Shoulders, Head, When I'm Done, I Go to Bed” on healthy sleep habits for children that incorporates the five R’s of early childhood brain development (Read, Rhyme, Routines, Reward and Relationship). The book, which is available in both Spanish and English, is featured in this issue of Hispanic Outlook.

Today he offers this bit of advice to his colleagues and freshly minted Physicians, “Don’t complain about the flaws of the system, move forward and find a way to contribute to its improvement.”