Biography of TMA President Carlos J. Cardenas, MD

Carlos J. Cardenas, MD, has more than 25 years of experience in medicine and health care management. Dr. Cardenas was raised in McAllen, Texas, and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Austin College in Sherman, Texas. Following his undergraduate studies, he attended and graduated medical school from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. He began his medical career as an intern and resident at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas, in 1985.

Dr. Cardenas became a board certified internal medicine specialist in 1988, and has served as an internal medicine physician in various medical organizations since 1991. He co-founded South Texas Gastroenterology Associates in 1992, where he is actively practicing. Dr. Cardenas served as President of the Hidalgo – Starr Medical Society in 2001, and was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Texas Medical Association in 2005. He was elected as president-elect of the Texas Medical Association in 2016 and will be president of the association in 2017-18.

Dr. Cardenas serves as Chairman of the Board of Doctors Hospital at Renaissance. Dr. Cardenas was one of seven physicians who helped found Day Surgery at Renaissance, LLC. Under his tenure as chairman, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance has grown from an outpatient facility into a 506-bed general acute care hospital with 17 facilities. Doctors Hospital at Renaissance has provided in excess of $1 billion in community economic benefit over the past three years and employs more than 3,000 people. Presently, DHR is one of the largest physician-owned facilities in the United States and offers some of the most comprehensive medical care on the U.S. southern border. For the past three years, DHR has been recognized by Thompson Reuters as being one of the Top 20 Large Hospitals in the United States.

In 2015, Dr. Carlos was instrumental in opening a teaching hospital with 26 residents and will host students from the new University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Medical School — playing an integral role in creating a new medical school model that will bring innovation and 21st-century thinking to the teaching of medicine. A research institute was recently launched with some of the finest researchers in the country to tackle the epidemic levels of diabetes and its co-morbidities that plague our patients. Dr. Cardenas is committed to mentoring the next generation of physicians.

He is married to Linda Christine and has 3 children: Adam, Simon, and Daniel.

Read Dr. Cardenas' Installation Address.

TMA President's Page

Last Updated On

May 16, 2018

Originally Published On

May 04, 2017