Sarah Medina Rodriguez, MD, CCRP serves as the Director of Institutional Research at Yuma Regional Medical Center since 2016.  She is a certified clinical research professional with a strong medical background and 15 years of clinical research experience in contract and budget negotiations, grant writing, internal auditing, regulatory compliance, developing policy and training procedures all exemplifying career progression and successful action plans of management in industry funded (drug and device) and federally funded trials in cardiology, oncology, hepatology, COVID-19 and population health.  She and her research team put Yuma on the map for several device trials that led to FDA approval, continues to maintain a favorable industry presence on a global level and has been published.

She began her clinical research career in 2006 as a clinical research coordinator at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City working alongside key opinion leaders in Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.  Having found her true calling and passion she continued on this career path when she moved to Phoenix, Arizona and demonstrated increasing levels of leadership roles where she was the Research Operations Director for 2 Centers of Excellence at Banner Research – Banner Alzheimer’s Institute and Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center.             

She obtained her Doctor of Medicine degree at St. Luke’s Medical Center in the Philippines and earned a BA in Psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo.  In her spare time she enjoys gardening, creating art with her children and globe-trotting adventures with her family.