Dr. Tom Mayes is a retired pediatric intensivist and a lung transplant recipient. A native Texan, Tom has received degrees from Baylor University, Georgetown University School of Medicine and the University of Texas San Antonio College of Business. An Air Force ROTC distinguished graduate, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in May 1980. He served on active duty as a pediatric and pediatric critical care medicine physician for eight years solely at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.

 

In 1994 he joined the pediatric faculty at UT Health San Antonio. In addition to continual clinical practice, Tom had several key leadership roles at UT Health and affiliated hospitals. These include inaugural chief of the pediatric critical care division, founding pediatric critical care fellowship director, and serving concurrently as medical director of the pediatric ICUs at Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital and University Hospital. Key medical school administrative roles include clinical dean and president/CEO of University Physicians Group, the medical school’s practice plan. He also served for 14 years as pediatric department chairman and a year as interim dean of the medical school. Tom was the inaugural physician-in-chief at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital.

In 2015 he was one of six health leaders selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow. He served on the Subcommittee on Health of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee in 2016. After completing the RWJF Health Policy Fellowship in 2016, he retired from UT Health San Antonio and moved to New York City. From there he continued part-time clinical practice as a faculty member of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso and in 2018 was appointed pediatric department chairman. Dr. Mayes continually maintained board certification in pediatrics and pediatric critical care medicine and was a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Critical Care Medicine until retirement at the end of 2019.

Fibrotic lung disease, diagnosed in 2016 worsened at the end of 2019 leading to a double lung transplant in February 2021 preceded by 105 days on ECMO at the San Antonio Military Medical Center. He now serves as a Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation Ambassador and on the clinical and scientific advisory board for Vascular Perfusion Solutions, a San Antonio company developing technology to extend the viability of donated organs.