Maria Nichole Perez, M.D.

Maria Nichole Perez serves as the medical director for primary care for the Ascension Seton Family of Doctors and the Ascension Seton University Physicians Group. She is a primary care physician through Ascension Seton and is an attending hospitalist at Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas.

Perez completed her internal medicine residency at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB), where she also served as chief resident. She was an associate program director in internal medicine, as well as the combined programs of preventive and aerospace medicine at UTMB.

Gaining experience in graduate medical education curriculum development, Perez then worked abroad in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, as program director of internal medicine in an institution advancing training programs being accredited by the International Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. After completing her time in the Middle East, she returned to her hometown of El Paso, Texas, and joined the El Paso Hospitalist Services as vice president of clinical programs. In addition to serving as a hospitalist in a very busy medical center in this underserved, low-income population along the United States-Mexico border, she was also the lead physician of the outpatient mobile doc service, which provided home clinical visits to patients who were older and homebound.

Perez is passionate about improving systems and teaching, which led her back to an academic environment in 2016, resulting in her current role with Ascension Seton and Dell Medical School in Austin. Her passion for systems improvement includes physician wellness: She is currently involved in resident and faculty wellness initiatives, quality improvement initiatives and developing tools for physician wellness.