Dr. José Alberto Arévalo has been the Chief Medical Executive for Sutter Independent Physicians (SIP) since 2003.  SIP is a 600+ physicians strong multi-specialty IPA located in the Greater Sacramento Region. Dr. Arévalo is a board-certified family physician with a long and prominent reputation as a teacher, researcher and administrator. A graduate of Stanford Medical School, he completed his residency and clinical research fellowship in family medicine at University of California San Francisco. Dr. Arévalo has practiced medicine in numerous settings, including several community clinics, a multi-specialty medical group and also served on the academic track of UC Davis Medical School from 1987 to 1994.

As a full-time faculty member at UC Davis, his research focused on reproductive health, gestational diabetes, and Type 2 diabetes. His work led to numerous publications, most notably a 1988 Journal of the American Medical Association paper that helped revise national policy in screening for Hepatitis B in Pregnancy. He was also the director of the Department’s Medical Student Education Program and was named the recipient of the 1994 UC Davis Kaiser Award for Excellence in Teaching.

While at Davis, Dr. Arévalo was also Instructor-of-Record and primary physician consultant for Clinica Tepati, a student-run primary care, free clinic serving underserved patients in Sacramento’s Alkali Flats, a role he proudly held for 16 years.

Dr. Arévalo has also been a consultant to the Department of Corporations and the lead physician for the Perinatal Outreach Unit for Electronic Data Systems, the Medi-Cal fiscal intermediary.

As a member of the statewide Board of the American Diabetes Association California Affiliate, he worked with the Department of Health Service’s Diabetes Control Program as one of the original members of the California Diabetes Steering Committee that created the Diabetes Coalition of California. As the first chair of the Guidelines Committee, he led the effort to establish and promulgate Consensus Basic Diabetes Care Guidelines through CCHRI that gained widespread acceptance across California.

Dr. Arévalo has served as the Northern California medical director for Prudential Health Care, United Health Care, Blue Cross and Turtle Health Plan. Prior to his role at Sutter, Dr. Arevalo was the Senior Vice-President for Medical Services for Health Plan of the Redwoods, a 78,000-member non-profit community health plan in Sonoma County.

He completed the California Healthcare Foundation/UCSF Center for Health Professionals Leadership Program in 2005.  In addition to serving as the Founding President and Chair of the Latinx Physicians of California (LPOC), he is the Founder and Immediate President and Chair of the Sacramento Latino Medical Association (SaLMA).

He was the first winner of the California Latino Medical Association Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to Latino Health Issues in 1992.  He is the past recipient of the California Wellness Foundation's Champions of Health Professions Diversity Award in 2006.  In 2008 he was the National Hispanic Health Foundation's First Leadership Award winner and again was also the 5^th Awardee in 2013 for continued leadership in Latino Health. He was also awarded the CMA Foundation Ethnic Physician of the Year in 2013.  He is the recipient of the Pioneer Award from the National Medical Foundation for 2017 for his lifelong commitment to improving health care to underserved communities.  He was also recently named the 2024 Robert D. Sparks, M.D. Leadership Award recipient by the Physicians for A Healthy California, formally known as the CMA Foundation.