TEMPLE, Texas (May 16, 2008) – Alejandro Arroliga, M.D. has been appointed Interim Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at Scott & White and the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine.

A faculty member since September 2006, Dr. Arroliga is a Professor of Internal Medicine and the Director of the Division of Pulmonary, Sleep and Critical Care Medicine.  He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Arroliga specializes in acute respiratory failure (ARDS), pulmonary hypertension, bronchogenic carcinoma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema and bronchial asthma.

Active in the American Thoracic Society and the Society of Critical Care Medicine, Dr. Arroliga was named in the “Best Doctors in America” in 1998, 2004 and 2006 and “America’s Top Doctors” from 2001 to 2004. He received the Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award for Internal Medicine in 2000, 2002 and 2003 and the Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award in Pulmonary Disease in 2002, both from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

Dr. Arroliga received his M.D. from Veracruzana University in Veracruz, Mexico in 1984 and completed his residency at Coney Island Hospital in New York from 1987 to 1990. He also completed a pulmonary and critical care fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. from 1990 to 1993.

Dr. Arroliga is replacing Dr. Charles Foulks, who had served in the interim role since May 2007. Dr. Foulks will be leaving Scott & White and the College of Medicine at the end of June to assume the position of Internal Medicine Chairman at the University of Oklahoma.