Jean Paul Higuero-Sevilla, MD

Jean Paul Higuero-Sevilla, MD, is a physician who is board-certified in internal medicine, pulmonary disease, and critical care medicine. He specializes in treating interstitial lung disease (a group of disorders that cause scarring of the lungs).

Growing up in Honduras, however, Dr. Higuero-Sevilla originally had no intention of entering medicine. “My father and my grandfather are both physicians, and I would page through my dad’s medical text books and the world was always familiar to me, but I initially resisted that path,” he explains, adding that he was set to come to the United States for college to study computer science when he realized medicine was what he really wanted to pursue.

“In medical school, I first fell in love with internal medicine because it takes such a global approach to helping patients and you have to know so much,” Dr. Higuero-Sevilla says. “From there, I was attracted to critical care because it is such a fast pace and you don’t have to wait long for outcomes; you can make patients feel better in a matter of hours. And then I discovered interstitial lung disease, which feels like detective work and is about finding patterns amongst labs, scans and clinical signs.”

Conditions that Dr. Higuero-Sevilla treats include idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, sarcoidosis, cystic lung diseases, and connective tissue disease associated interstitial lung diseases.

“These diseases require that you know about rheumatology, radiology, environmental, and occupational medicine, and that you work in a multidisciplinary format,” he explains. “It’s not straightforward but I like that it requires various specialists to come together to help our patients.”

For some of these conditions, it can take quite some time to get an accurate diagnosis. “When they see me for an appointment, I tell them I am going to review all the information we have, hear their story, and determine if we need further testing” he says. “It may take a few visits and some biopsies and tests, but I assure them that we will get answers and find the right treatments.”