Allen High School Health Occupation Student Association (HOSA) and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Allen have joined teams to work with HOSA students for the first time ever. Eight students from Allen High School’s HOSA team have been selected to shadow physicians of various kinds. At the end of the shadowing, they will do a report/poster and place it outside the Black Box when Dr. Francisco Cigarroa will come and speak on Feb. 10, 2016.

AHS and the hospital would like to invite all students to come hear Dr. Cigarroa speak.

According to Dr. Theresa Olfson, Cigarroa was a student of Dr. William Woodfin, a retired neurologist who practiced since the opening of the hospital 15 years ago. For his retirement the hospital staff raised money for him and he in turn used it for education. His love for educating both doctors and students in general is what inspired these first ever interactions between the high school and the hospital to award $1000 scholarship to first place winner of the shadowing the doctors. Cigarroa was one of his students when he used to teach in University of Texas SouthWestern Medical Center.

Here is some information about Dr. Cigarroa as given to me by Dr. Olfson:

“[He went] from Dr. Woodfin’s medical student in Paris, Tx, to [becoming] chancellor of the UT system,” Dr. Olfson said.

Dr. Cigarroa said: “My greatest hardship was my transition from High School To College….I was underprepared and had to study all day and all night to catch up.  Everything after college was less challenging.”

After graduating from high school in Laredo, Texas, Dr. Cigarroa decided to pursue a medical career and began by attending Yale University to get his Bachelor’s degree in Biology.

“Watching my father practice medicine and my uncle perform surgery inspired me to become a physician,” Dr. Cigarroa said.

After his years at Yale, he attended University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas and earned his medical degree with honors. For post-graduate training, he went to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to practice surgery.  He then received medical training in Pediatric Surgery and Transplant Surgery at John Hopkins University.

He then joined the faculty and staff of the University of North Texas in San Antonio and became the first Hispanic Chancellor of the entire UT system, where he oversaw six health institutions and nine academic institutions. He now practices pediatric transplant surgery in San Antonio.
He will be speaking Wednesday, Feb. 10 in the Allen High School Black Box about his rise to success.