Juan Ramón de la Fuente

Who is Juan Ramón de la Fuente?

Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramírez is a Mexican psychiatrist, academician and politician who served as Secretary of Health in the cabinet of President Ernesto Zedillo and as rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico from 1999 to 2007.

De la Fuente graduated with a bachelor's degree in Medicine from the National Autonomous University in 1976 and specialized in Psychiatry at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, United States. When he returned to Mexico he founded the Clinical Research Unit of the Mexican Institute of Psychiatry and worked as a lecturer at UNAM's School of Medicine, for which he was elected Director in 1991. In 1995 he was elected President of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and four years latter was appointed Secretary of Health by President Zedillo.

In 1999, after a 10-months long student strike, he resigned from the federal cabinet and was appointed Rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. After some negotiations the conflict ended through a major plebiscite although the federal police forces were called upon to remove and arrest the remaining strikers. In 2003 he was reappointed for a second term.