LITTLE ROCK — Omar Atiq, M.D., a medical oncologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, has been named president of the American College of Physicians (ACP), the largest medical specialty organization in the nation.

A professor in the UAMS College of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology, Atiq is the first Arkansan to hold the position. He was elected president-elect in 2022 and in late April assumed leadership of the organization of internists that has 161,000 members worldwide.

Edward Yeh, M.D., chair of the UAMS Department of Internal Medicine, called Atiq “a trailer blazer who will inspire the next generation of physicians to excel in our missions.”

John Dornhoffer, M.D., chair of the UAMS Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery where Atiq also teaches, called him “an exemplary leader both at UAMS and for the state of Arkansas who will be an outstanding president for the American College of Physicians.”

Atiq received his medical degree from the Khyber Medical College, University of Peshawar, Pakistan. He completed his residency and chief residency in internal medicine at the Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Administration Hospital and Foster G. McGaw Hospital of Loyola University in Chicago. He completed a fellowship in medical oncology and hematology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

He is a former governor of the ACP Arkansas Chapter and past president and chairman of the Arkansas Medical Society.