Dr. Francisco Cigarroa – 10/4/08
MD, Chancellor, University of Texas System
Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D, the third president of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, is a nationally renowned pediatric and transplant surgeon. He is the first Hispanic in the continental United States to lead a health science university.
A native of Laredo, Dr. Cigarroa earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale and received his medical degree from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. During his 12 years of postgraduate training, Dr. Cigarroa was chief resident at Harvard’s teaching hospital, Massachusetts General in Boston, and completed a fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. In 1995, he joined the Health Science Center faculty in San Antonio. Dr. Cigarroa was on the surgical team that in 1997 split a donor liver for transplant into two recipients; it was the first split liver transplantation in the University Health Care System.
In 2000, he headed the team that performed South Texas’ first successful pediatric small bowel transplant. In October 2000, he was appointed president of the Health Science Center. In Feb 2003, he was appointed by President Bush to serve as a member of the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science. In October 2006, Dr. Cigarroa was elected to membership in the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Only four other individuals in San Antonio hold this distinction.
Dr. Cigarroa, the third oldest of 10 children, is an accomplished guitarist in classical and flamenco music. He and his wife, Graciela, an attorney, have two daughters, Maria Cristina and Barbara Carisa.
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