Dr. José Alberto Arévalo is the Chief Medical Officer for Sutter Independent Physicians, a 600-physician, multi-specialty IPA located in the Greater Sacramento Region. Dr. Arévalo is a board-certified family physician with a long and prominent reputation as a teacher, researcher and administrator. A graduate of Stanford Medical School, he completed his residency and clinical research fellowship in family medicine at University of California San Francisco. Dr. Arévalo has practiced medicine in numerous settings, including several community clinics and a multi-specialty medical group. He has also served on the faculty of the UC Davis Medical School for the last 30 years.

As a full-time faculty member at UC Davis, his research has focused on reproductive health, gestational diabetes, and Type 2 diabetes. His work led to numerous publications, most notably a 1988 Journal of the American Medical Association paper that helped revise national policy in screening for Hepatitis B in Pregnancy. He was also the director of the Department’s Medical Student Education Program and was named the recipient of the 1994 UC Davis Kaiser Award for Excellence in Teaching. He was the first winner of the California Latino Medical Association Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to Latino Health Issues in 1992.

While at Davis, Dr. Arévalo was also Instructor-of-Record and primary physician consultant for Clinica Tepati, a student-run primary care free clinic serving underserved patients in Sacramento’s Alkali Flats, a role he proudly held for 16 years. Dr. Arévalo has also been a consultant to the Department of Corporations and the lead physician for the Perinatal Outreach Unit for Electronic Data Systems, the Medi-Cal fiscal intermediary.

As a member of the statewide Board of the American Diabetes Association California Affiliate, he worked with the Department of Health Service’s Diabetes Control Program as one of the original members of the California Diabetes Steering Committee that created the Diabetes Coalition of California. As the first chair of the Guidelines Committee, he led the effort to establish and promulgate Consensus Basic Diabetes Care Guidelines through CCHRI that are now widely accepted across California.

He has been the Northern California medical director for Prudential Health Care, United Health Care, Blue Cross and Turtle Health Plan. Prior to his role at Sutter, Dr. Arevalo was the Senior Vice-President for Medical Services for Health Plan of the Redwoods, a 78,000-member non-profit community health plan in Sonoma County.

Dr. Arévalo completed the California Healthcare Foundation/UCSF Center for Health Professionals Leadership Program in 2005. In addition to serving as the past Chair of the Latinx Physicians of California, he is the Founder and Immediate President/Chair of the Sacramento Latino Medical Association and the immediate past Chairman of the California Medical Foundation’s Network of Ethnic Physicians Organizations.

In 2006, Dr. Arévalo was named one of three The California Wellness Foundation’s fourth annual Champions of Health Professions Diversity Award winner and was one of three awardees of the First Annual National Hispanic Health Foundation’s Leadership Award in January of 2008. In 2013, the California Medical Association (CMA) Foundation awarded him with the Ethnic Physician Leadership Award. He is the recipient of the Pioneer Award from the National Medical Foundation for 2017 for his lifelong commitment to improving health care to underserved communities.