Richard J. Castriotta, MD, Recognized for Excellence in Medical Education

LOS ANGELES, June 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Richard J. Castriotta, MD, is a distinguished biographee of Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are chosen from among a pool of the most prominent professionals and are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

A professor emeritus of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Dr. Castriotta is currently active as a professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Prior to this position, he served as a professor of internal medicine at the John P. and Katherine G. McGovern Medical School at UT Health from 2002 to 2019. He has also served as Chief of Pulmonary Medicine (2004-2019) and as medical director of the Sleep Disorders Center (1995-2019) at the Memorial Hermann Hospital ? Texas Medical Center in Houston. During his tenure at UT Health, Dr. Castriotta also spent time as the director of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine (beginning in 2004) and as an associate professor of internal medicine (1995-2002).

First earning a Bachelor of Arts at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1967, Dr. Castriotta embarked on his career as a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston that same year. Going on to study at the University of Bologna in Italy, he obtained a Doctor of Medicine in 1974 and completed a residency at the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1974 to 1978. Following these accomplishments, he spent two and a half years as a pulmonary fellow and then research fellow in immunopathology at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington before formally joining the School of Medicine and serving as an assistant professor of medicine and pathology and an associate professor of clinical medicine between 1981 and 1995. During this time, Dr. Castriotta was also active in a number of leadership roles at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, as it transitioned into part of St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center.

An internationally recognized leader in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine, Dr. Castriotta was the senior author of the papers that established the safety and efficacy of using helium to treat acute severe asthma, which resulted in a reduction of asthma mortality. Furthermore, he was instrumental in establishing the definitive diagnosis of sarcoidosis by imaging studies and conducted the definitive study of sleep disorders after traumatic brain injury. Throughout his career, Dr. Castriotta has been a pioneer in the field of sleep medicine and established one of the early formal sleep medicine training programs in Texas and one of the early sleep disorder centers in Connecticut.

A fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, Dr. Castriotta also served the organization as the chair of the palliative and end-of-life care network from 2014 to 2016, the chair of the sleep network from 2006 to 2008 and a member of the steering committee for the Sleep Institute from 2005 to 2010. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a member of the American Thoracic Society and the Southern Sleep Society, where he contributed his skills as the president from 2003 to 2005. More recently active as the president of the board of directors for the Southern Sleep Foundation from 2013 to 2019, Dr. Castriotta is notable for having been a part of the Expert Panel for Sleep Disturbances in Traumatic Brain Injury for the United States Department of Defense.

For excellence in his field, Dr. Castriotta has been the recipient of a number of accolades. Recognized as one of the Leading Physicians in the World, he has also been honored as a Top Pulmonologist in Houston and among Houston's Top Doctors and America's Top Physicians. Impressively, he was also featured in Worldwide Who's Who Executives and Professionals from 2011 to 2014 and named a Distinguished CHEST Educator by the American College of Chest Physicians in 2017. Just last year, Dr. Castriotta was presented with an Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and he has previously been selected for inclusion in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in American Education.

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Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America^®, Marquis Who's Who^® has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America^® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis^® publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who^® website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.

SOURCE Marquis Who's Who