AMA names new executive vice president/CEO

The AMA today named James L. Madara, MD (left), as its new executive vice president and CEO. Dr. Madara will assume leadership of the nation’s oldest and largest physician group July 1.

Dr. Madara, 60, is an accomplished academic medical center physician, medical scientist and administrator who served as Timmie Professor and chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine before assuming the Thompson Distinguished Service Professorship and deanship at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Madara was the longest-serving Pritzker dean in the last 35 years.



Subsequently, he added the responsibility of CEO of the University of Chicago Medical Center, bringing together the university’s biomedical research, teaching and clinical activities. As CEO, he engineered significant new affiliations with community hospitals, teaching hospital systems, community Federally Qualified Health Centers on Chicago’s South Side, and with national research organizations, including the Janelia Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Bethesda and the Ludwig Foundation of New York.

“The AMA is a venerable institution, and I am honored to lead it during this challenging and exciting time,” Dr. Madara said. “The AMA has been at the forefront working to improve public health, physician practice, patient care and our American health care system for the past 164 years. Today more than ever, America’s patients and physicians need a strong and vibrant AMA to tackle the many challenges facing them.

“I look forward to leveraging my skills and experience to help the AMA succeed and fulfill its core mission to promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.”

A noted academic pathologist and an authority on epithelial cell biology and on gastrointestinal disease, Dr. Madara will replace Michael D. Maves, MD, MBA, who has led the AMA since 2001.

“Dr. Madara is a strong strategic thinker and planner who has a track record of bringing people together to accomplish significant, ambitious health-related goals and projects,” AMA Board Chair Ardis D. Hoven, MD, said. “Having overseen a $1.6 billion integrated academic medical center, Dr. Madara understands many of the complex clinical, academic and business-related issues confronting medicine and health care today. His insight and perspective will be invaluable in helping the AMA tackle its agenda.”