Puerto Rican becomes the first psychologist on a significant board of the American Medical Association

Puerto Rico Idalia Massa She became the first psychologist to join the editorial board of the AMA’s flagship guide to reparations.

Massa, who currently resides in Denver, Colorado, has been nominated by the American Psychological Association to represent the field at a US level on the prestigious panel.

Then, last week, the AMA accepted and named Puerto Rico to the committee, which the APA celebrated for being the first time someone from the field of psychology had participated in said panel.

Massa received the news with affection and congratulations from friends, colleagues and health professionals in Colorado, where he currently resides. He commented that he received a letter highlighting the fact from the Department of Mental Health in World Health Organization.

Massa said in an interview with El Nuevo Día from Denver.

“That jibarita from San Lorenzo Square will now be in the mental health decision-making process, is a great pride,” he added.

The Permanent Disability Assessment Manual is used in the United States, Canada, and other countries to make decisions about medical outcomes in injury cases.

This evidence is so important that it is used by various entities when awarding billions of dollars annually in compensation claims for health reasons.

According to Massa, “These decisions are used to make decisions on disability claims, malpractice damages, personal injury, and workers compensation cases.”

Massa has spent much of her career in this field, since joining the US Department of Health in 2001. At the time of her appointment to the APA, she was a licensed health and rehabilitation psychiatrist.

Daughter of a construction worker and a nurse, Massa from the Jaguar district San Lorenzo.

“It’s a small town, where everyone knows each other and there is respect and honor for being humble,” he recalls proudly.

Massa is a product of Puerto Rico’s public education system and graduated from the Rio Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR).

He later completed his graduate studies at Texas A&M University and Columbia University in New York, before settling in Colorado.

In the UPR, at the end of the 1990s, his name became known when it was published in the Journal of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Study on the criminal case of Angel Colon Maldonadowhich is the only documented case of a serial killer in Puerto Rico.

His report served as a reference for other studies of the infamous condition, which rocked the island in the mid-1980s.

“The person who wrote the article was not a doctor, he was a high school student. High school students should be recognized,” Massa said.

“I would like to commend the UPR high school students and all the universities in Puerto Rico. You must motivate these young people trying to get their high school diplomas.