William R. Auger, MD, has joined Temple University Hospital as a pulmonologist in the Pulmonary Hypertension, Right Heart Failure and Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension (CTEPH) Program in the Temple Heart and Vascular Institute, and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. Dr. Auger was most recently Director of the CTEPH Program at UCSD Healthcare in San Diego – the nation’s number one CTEPH/Pulmonary Thromboendarterectomy (PTE) program by volume and Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at UCSD School of Medicine. He served as Medical Director of UCSD’s PTE Program for nearly 15 years.
“We are excited to welcome Dr. Auger and his decades of experience in treating CTEPH to Temple,” says Paul Forfia, MD, Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension, Right Heart Failure and CTEPH Program at TUH. “Temple’s program has been one of the most active and rapidly growing in the United States, performing more than 150 PTE procedures since 2013. Dr. Auger’s arrival will further advance what we’re already able to offer patients and it speaks volumes about the program’s reputation that he would choose to join our team.”
Dr. Auger completed a pulmonary and critical care fellowship at UC San Diego Medical Center and a critical care fellowship at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, NY. He previously completed his residency at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY, and earned his medical degree from University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.
“I look forward to bringing my experience in treating CTEPH to Temple,” says Dr. Auger. “Patients with this rare but increasingly diagnosed condition turn to Temple more than anywhere else on the East Coast, and it’s an honor to join the ranks of this distinguished team of physicians.”
An experienced clinician and active researcher, Dr. Auger has hundreds of publications and presentations to his credit. He is Chair of the International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation’s CTEPH Council, Chair of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association’s SLC CTEPH Working Group, and an editorial board consultant and reviewer for more than a dozen professional journals. He is consistently named one of the nation’s top doctors by a variety of publications.
The success of Temple’s program relies on a team of experts – including cardiology specialists in pulmonary hypertension, interventional cardiology, thoracic imaging and cardiovascular surgery – for optimal preoperative assessment, surgical care, and postoperative patient management. Dr. Auger will be joining this dedicated and highly specialized CTEPH team which includes cardiologists Drs. Paul Forfia, Anjali Vaidya and Riyaz Bashir, and cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Yoshiya Toyoda.