His father was a teacher to many of us at EB Jones during the 1950's. Like father like son.

Father of the medical school: After 10 years, Dr. de la Rosa can't wait for classes to start

Posted: 06/28/2009 06:26:21 PM MDT

Dr. Jose Manuel de la Rosa is the founding dean of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso Paul L. Foster School of Medicine. (Photos by Mark Lambie / El Paso Times)

EL PASO - Dr. Jose Manuel de la Rosa rarely lifts the curtain into his personal life.

De la Rosa is just not the type to shine the spotlight on himself, not the type to brag about his achievements as one of El Paso's prominent Mexican-American leaders, and not the type to hog the credit as the often outspoken but diplomatic founding dean of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso Paul L. Foster School of Medicine - the huge El Paso dream he nursed for a decade.

"I'm able to move out of the circle that I do business with and be somebody else," he says. "I'm a family man like anybody else. That's my off life."

De la Rosa, a 51-year-old pediatrician, has been identified over the years not only as "an angel of mercy" who once provided free medical care to El Paso County's poorest children, but also as a persistent voice for El Paso's four-year medical school.

Now that the first 40 medical school students are about to start the first round of classes this fall, the man behind the trademark bow tie can't help smiling. He relishes the "tough but sensible" reputation he earned in a 10-year political struggle to establish the only four-year medical school on the U.S.-Mexican border.

"That's what I do," de la Rosa says while kicking back in a big corner office filled with plaques and religious icons. "I irritate people. I get under their skin and make 'em move."

Almost 2,700 students applied for the first medical school slots. The school will

gradually expand to accommodate 100 students.

De la Rosa can hardly wait for the first batch - nine from El Paso, one from the border in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, and the rest from across Texas and the United States.

"It's just like giving birth. It's going to happen. There's no turning back," de la Rosa says. "Right now, we're feeling some labor pains. We're getting anxious. We're getting that nesting instinct."

Nobody paints a better picture of de la Rosa than El Paso's Maria Elena Flood, a retired administrator at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso, who has known him for decades. De la Rosa respects her as if she were a second mother.

"He's a very interesting fellow, very bright. He has great intellect but doesn't like to throw that around and try to talk big words and all," Flood says. "We immediately recruited him to become a faculty member as soon as he finished his residency" in 1987.

Flood and other acquaintances describe de la Rosa as a man devoted to El Paso, his 14-year-old twins and four older children; a charitable man who has few hobbies other than traveling with his family; a man who can easily stash away his professional prestige and titles and mow the grass or prune the trees at his upper-middle-class house in East El Paso.

At Cathedral High School, he was always more of a geek, never an athlete.

"He's not pompous at all," Flood says. "When I've seen him lose his cool, he just walks away from it and comes back later all calmado."

De la Rosa comes from a hardworking Catholic family. His late father, Manuel, an educator for 30 years, insisted that his son had no choice but to go to college to become a priest, a lawyer, an architect, a doctor, an engineer or teacher.

De la Rosa couldn't draw or do math very well, so he opted for medicine, never imagining he would also end up teaching pediatrics.

"I learned what a privilege it is to be a doctor," de la Rosa says. "People tell doctors things they don't tell a priest. They literally and figuratively disrobe in front of you."

He started wearing a bow tie "just to be a clown" and thumb his nose at a faculty member who said he should dress the part if he wanted to be respected as a doctor.

"When he saw me with a bow tie on, he just rolled his eyes. I wanted to be a little bit of a maverick," de la Rosa says. "Afterward, I learned bow ties are traditional for pediatricians."

The bow tie tradition stuck. But de la Rosa says he also never wore long ties after a 4-year-old patient grabbed a bolo tie he was wearing and yanked him down.

De la Rosa once thought he might become a classical violinist. He also studied at a seminary for a spell. He's still addicted to classical music.

Monsignor Francis J. Smith, pastor of St. Raphael Catholic Church, describes de la Rosa as a natural and decisive diplomat who can defuse any situation, the type of generous parishioner who quietly donates to various causes not only in his neighborhood church but also across El Paso, often in partnership with his wife, Maureen.

"He's a phenomenal human being, very loyal to this city and to the school of medicine," Smith says. "Spiritually, he's at Mass every morning at 6:30."

Elizabeth Wiehe, the principal of St. Raphael Catholic School, applauds de la Rosa for being involved in every aspect of his children's education.

"He makes time for everything that he's involved in even though he doesn't have a whole lot of extra time," Wiehe says. "El Paso is so fortunate to have him in charge of the new medical school. The man is very committed, a very good human being."

People often ask de la Rosa why he doesn't live on the West Side like other rich doctors. He tells them he's well-off but would rather stay on the East Side in the brick house he has occupied for 27 years.

None of the neighbors make a fuss when de la Rosa tosses aside the bow tie, walks around in sweats and does his own yard work. That's how he relaxes away from the dinner and lecture circuit, away from the multiple demands on his professional time.

"In my off hours, I'm not Dr. de la Rosa and I'm not the dean. I'm just a dad," he says. "That's neat to be able to have a whole separate identity."

Ramón Rentería may be reached at rrenteria@elpasotime.com; 546-6146.

De La Rosa file

· Name: Dr. Jose Manuel de la Rosa.

· Born: May 18, 1958, at El Paso's Hotel Dieu hospital.

· Family: his wife, Maureen; and children, Michael Manuel, 28; Mary Margaret, 27; Melissa Marie, 25; Meaghan Martha, 21; and twins Mercedes Moira and Maximilano Marcos, 14. He also has a sister, Maria de los Angeles de la Rosa Rupinen.

· Roots: His father, Manuel, taught school for 30 years at E.B. Jones Elementary in Smeltertown and at Houston Elementary. His mother, Lupita, came from a Juárez family.

· Education: Cathedral High School, 1976; Notre Dame University, 1980; Texas Tech University School of Medicine, 1984.

· What's on his nightstand: "The Lion in the Senate," the life story of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

· Something interesting: He and his wife, Maureen, met in the Notre Dame University cafeteria, where they worked as undergraduate students.

· Pet peeve: "People who think they can fix things by yelling and shouting. It just doesn't work."

· Something he enjoys: "My kids give me grief because I love shopping at Wal-Mart."

· One surprise: "I hate ties."

· Quote: "We think of ourselves as a poor community, and we are, in a certain sense. But if we all cooperate, we can do things in El Paso like you can't do anywhere else. It just takes somebody to keep pushing constantly."

Source: Dr. Jose Manuel de la Rosa.