Enrique Pérez Santiago

Dr. Enrique Pérez Santiago, MD (1916 – June 20, 1999) was a Puerto Rican medical doctor. Born in Comerio, he was the first Puerto Rican hematologist and he began the formal program at the University of Puerto Rico Hospital.

Early life and education His father don Manuel A. Pérez was a public servant, reason which had to move to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Enrique studied at the UPR Rio Piedras, where he joined Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity. Later he went to study at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and graduated in 1943. He joined the Interamerican Society of Hematology and, in 1958, he joined the newly founded American Society of Hematology. That same year, Dr. William Crosby, director of the research laboratory of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center met with Dr. Pérez Santiago to establish a research center at the Rodriguez Military Hospital at Fort Brooke Army post in San Juan for studying the Tropical sprue, which was at that time an endemic condition on the island and in tropical regions of Asia. In some time the laboratory and the research center were established in the Conference Room 10 of the military hospital. There were many leading research doctors doing their army internship, studying the cause and treatment of the sprue. Pérez Santiago, in collaboration with Thomas Sheehy, published one of the first studies of the treatment of sprue with antibiotics and other alternatives. There he recruited Lillian Haddock as associate Dean and Dr. Pedro Rossello for the Department of Surgery and Medicine. He also expanded educational consortia.

Later, Pérez Santiago returned to his private practice. But his public service was not over. Governor Hernández Colon returned to recruit as director of the Office of Quality Public Service. This was the basis for the founding of the Office of Government Ethics of Puerto Rico.

Personal life Dr. Pérez Santiago married Cecilia Diaz Bonet and they had six children.