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Live Better with Buena Vida Hospice

Compassion, Integrity, Excellence

Care providers dedicated to your comfort

Buena Vida Hospice is a hospice and palliative care company profoundly advancing the well-being and honoring the dignity of those we serve. By educating our community and discrediting the taboo or stigma surrounding hospice, we hope to make the world a better place one family at a time.

Our company culture is rooted in three core values – compassion, integrity, and excellence. We are dedicated to leading the transformation of health care delivery by continuously and measurably improving the quality of person-centered, physician-driven, team-based care.

Melissa Trevino

Administrator

Melissa is a pioneer in end-of-life care. She recognizes that while we may not like what is to come at the end of life, we need to be willing to meet it and learn from it. Hospice has been a taboo for too long. She once read that the word “Welcome” confronts us; it asks us to temporarily suspend our usual rush to judgment and to be open to what is showing up at our front door, to receive it in the spirit of hospitality. At the deepest level, this invitation is asking us to cultivate a fearless acceptance.  Her passion is to help people explore their options and embrace the truths of death.
Melissa is responsible for supervising and collaborating with physicians, nurse practitioners, and clinicians of Texas while serving urban and rural communities. She helps provide comprehensive end-of-life care while promoting best practices for the delivery of hospice and palliative care in both urban and rural communities.  As an educator, Melissa has dedicated more than 10 years to providing educational programs about hospice and palliative medicine, including symptom management (physical, psycho-social, emotional, and spiritual) and counseling in the end-of-life setting.

Rosita Ramirez

Alternate Administrator

Rosita was born and raised in Houston after her family moved from Mexico to raise a family here. She has had a combined 15 years of experience in healthcare. She started as a CNA and spent 6 years helping home and hospice patients in that capacity. Since then she has climbed the hospice ladder with promotions as office administrator, then as alternative administrator. She has worked both in the field and in the office in the hospice and home health worlds. Her drive is her wish to “help families understand that dying, is a part of living and that God has the last say. To be able to take families by the hand when they are lost and just be able to guide them in their difficult journey. It fills her heart to know that she has helped our patients and their families during difficult and trying times”

Dr. Francisco Daniel Medrano, MD

Medical Director

Dr. Medrano was born in Mexico City and grew up in Houston. His first language is Spanish and he frequented his hometown during summer vacations as a child. He attended the DeBakey High School for Health Professions then matriculated at Rice University for his undergraduate studies. He attended Temple School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, and completed his combined Internal Medicine and Pediatric residency at the University of Texas at Medical Branch at Galveston.

Dr. Medrano spent his first 8 years post-residency as a hospitalist and attended patients in multiple settings including hospitals, long term acute care facilities, nursing homes, and skilled nursing facilities. It is during this time in his career that he was introduced to and gained a strong interest in palliative and end of life care. He has been an active hospice advocate, leader, and medical director since 2007. He considers end-of-life and hospice care a professional and personal interest and is excited to be a part of the Buena Vida family.

Dr. Manish Parikh, MD

Medical Director

Dr. Parikh was born in North Carolina and grew up in Houston. He graduated from Alief Elsik High School and then attended the University of Texas in Austin for his undergraduate studies. He then attended Texas A&M Medical School and eventually completed his Internal Medicine and Pediatric residency at the University of Texas in Houston.

After his training, Dr. Parikh stayed in Houston and practiced as a hospitalist for almost 10 years. Currently, he has been practicing as a primary care physician in Houston since 2012. While taking care of patients in the hospital as well as in rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, and in the primary care setting, he has seen the importance of palliative and end of life care. He has also been caring for hospice patients since 2005 and is honored to be part of Buena Vida Hospice as a medical director.