Paula Ferrada Biography

Paula Andrea Ferrada Tolra (born April 28, 1977 in Cali, Colombia) is a doctor, model, and actress.

Model and actress

She held the title of Miss Belleza Juvenil in Colombia in 1994 and was the hostess of a local TV program called Super Bien in her home town. She had roles in sporadic episodes of the Colombian comedy O todos en la cama. She then pursued a modeling career and participated in more than 50 TV commercials.

Medicine

After a short modeling career, she dedicated her life to medicine. She finished medical school in Cali, Colombia, and arrived in the United States to pursue further training. After a year of research at the University of Miami, Ferrada joined Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, one of the major Harvard teaching hospitals for surgical residency. She was the first Colombian woman to graduate from a surgical specialty from Harvard.

She trained for one more year in Trauma and Critical care at the University of Pittsburgh, and then joined the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center as their first Acute Care Surgery Fellow. She joined Virginia Commonwealth University as one of their faculty members in the Division of Acute Care Surgical Services.

She has been the recipient of multiple teaching awards from Harvard Medical Students, directed multiple ultrasound courses for residents, and spent additional time training with the cardiologist at Pittsburgh. She is well-versed in echocardiography and its use in fluid status management as a result of her training at the Trauma Echocardiography service at shock trauma.

Dr Ferrada became an American College of Surgeons Ultrasound instructor while still a resident and directed her first ultrasound course for residents in 2007. Since then she has dedicated her efforts to become a national and international expert in ultrasound surgery and image based resuscitation of the trauma patient using echocardiogram.

She is currently the Director for the Surgical and Trauma ICU at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, and MCV Physicians, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery, VCU School of Medicine. She is also very active in global surgery education through the educational efforts of the Panamerican Trauma Society and teaching ultrasound in many Latin American countries.