By Lin Lofley

Dr. Romero Santiago

Dr. Romero Santiago, a son of Sri Lankan parents and a believer in the power of hard work and a smile, is leaving a towering legacy for students who follow him at UT Southwestern Medical School.

Dr. Santiago, who will soon begin a three-year residency at the University of California at Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, has been named the recipient of the 2017 Minnie Lee Lancaster, M.D., Scholarship Award in Family Medicine.

He adds the Lancaster Award to the 2017 Iatros Award, for which he was recently announced as the winner. The Iatros is the only graduating student award determined by a class vote of fourth-year students of the Medical School.

“It would be hard for me to express how humbling it is to win one of the Family Medicine awards in the same year I have been so honored by my classmates,” Dr. Santiago said. “Family medicine is the specialty I have chosen, so of course I want to progress in the specialty; but for my peers at UT Southwestern Medical School to single me out with the Iatros Award is just unbelievable.”

He was born in Gainesville, Florida, into a busy household. At the time his father, Christopher, was working on his master’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Florida, and his mother, Perpetua, who had studied psychology at The Ohio State University, was a Cardiology Technician at Shands Hospital.

From an early age, their son has proceeded to leadership and achievement at each step in his life.

At Klein High School, in the suburbs of Houston, he was valedictorian and National Honor Society President for the Class of 2009.

At the University of Pennsylvania, he graduated summa cum laude with Dean’s List recognition for all four years, majoring in economics and minoring in music. (He sings as well as plays piano and cello.)

From there he came to UT Southwestern, where his elected positions and recognitions range from the presidency of the Gold Humanism Honor Society to the Seldin Society for Internal Medicine to twice winning the President’s Volunteer Service Award. And those are only a few of his achievements.

“I have been passionate about leadership ever since a very young age due to the opportunities it presents to serve others in our community,” Dr. Santiago said.

Dr. Dan Sepdham, Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine, said, “Romero is truly amazing in many ways. With regard to family medicine, I think he is going to bring an unbridled enthusiasm to improve the lives of Americans through primary care. I expect he will be a leader in our field.”

The Minnie Lee Lancaster, M.D., Scholarship Award in Family Medicine honors Dr. Lancaster and her husband, Dr. Edgar Lancaster, who in 1953 opened the Grapevine Clinic and Hospital, the first clinic in Grapevine and the forerunner of Baylor Scott & White Medical Center at Grapevine.

As a Medical Student, Dr. Santiago served as Vice President of the Family Medicine Interest Group alongside the group’s President, Dr. Herbert Rosenbaum – the person Dr. Santiago personally nominated for the Iatros Award.

“[Dr. Santiago’s] attention to both patient care and clinical prowess has already been recognized by his peers in the Gold Humanism Honor Society,” said Dr. Rosenbaum, who will soon begin his own residency in family medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix. “But we constantly remark upon Romero’s kind and caring nature, particularly in his interactions with patients.”

Using the Greek word for “physician,” the UT Southwestern Medical School Class of 1984 established the Iatros Award in hopes that each subsequent graduating class would select the individual who most emulates the complete qualities of a physician.

The award carries a cash prize provided by the UT Southwestern Alumni Association.

Dr. Sepdham holds the Drs. Malone V. Hill and John W. Pate Professorship in Family Medicine