hroughout his life, Eugenio Rothe, M.D., has witnessed refugees and exiled families seeking an escape from turmoil in their home countries. As a child in the Dominican Republic, he saw an influx of Haitians fleeing financial and political instability. As a young adult in Puerto Rico, he observed the migration of his former Dominican countrymen as they sought relief from unrest on their small island. Upon his arrival in Miami, Cubans and Haitians were braving deadly seas to find freedom in America. And during a fellowship at Harvard, far from his family’s Cuban roots, Rothe tended the needs of refugees from Nicaragua and El Salvador when a local church offered support during civil war in their countries.

Rothe found the children of these exiled families to be among the most vulnerable, their mental states often overlooked. As his career progressed toward child psychiatry, the issue became an important one. He went on to lead a groundbreaking study on the effects of exile on the children of the 1994 Cuban Boatlift. Witnessing death during dangerous trips over the Atlantic Ocean, combined with conditions at the Guatanamo Bay refugee camp labeled “inhumane” by some civil rights organizations, left many children traumatized. Rothe was among the first to measure their levels of post-traumatic stress following release from the camps.

“When I traveled to the refugee camps to witness their plight firsthand, it was one of the most trying experiences of my life,” says Rothe, associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics. “But revealing the effects of their experience and offering an outlet for these children has been one of the most gratifying.”

Rothe’s other projects also address pediatric mental health issues that are not typically studied. Investigations ranging from the relationships of stepfathers and stepsons to different treatments for children with attention deficit disorder, in addition to his work with refugees, continue to further open doors into the minds of South Florida’s children.