Brody School of Medicine dean named to AAMC’s Board of Directors
Dr. Michael Waldrum, dean of East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine and chief executive officer of ECU Health, has been named to the board of directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
Dr. Michael Waldrum, dean of East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine and chief executive officer of ECU Health, has been named to the Board of Directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). (Contributed photo)
Waldrum joins 18 other medical school and health care leaders from across the nation and Canada named to the board, including representatives from Yale School of Medicine, Georgetown’s School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School.
“It is an honor to be named to the AAMC Board and to work with my colleagues in academic organizations across the national landscape to chart a healthier future for our communities and region,” Waldrum said. “Academic health care drives innovation, produces clinical excellence, and creates a teaching environment that helps train the providers of tomorrow. I look forward to continuing to collaborate alongside national leaders and focusing on how we can best support our students, faculty and academic rural health care.”
The AAMC leads and serves America’s medical schools and teaching hospitals and individuals employed across academic medicine, including more than 191,000 full-time faculty members, 95,000 medical students, 149,000 resident physicians, and 60,000 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the biomedical sciences. This year, the Association of Academic Health Centers and the Association of Academic Health Centers International merged into the AAMC, broadening the AAMC’s U.S. membership and expanding its reach to international academic health centers.
Waldrum, who was first appointed to the AAMC Board of Directors in November 2020, will begin his new term Nov. 15 and will also serve as chair of the AAMC’s Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems.
“This is such an important time in our industry and as chair of COTH, I look forward to bringing premier academic health systems together to define solutions that strengthen our health care workforce, support our students, advance research and address disparities, specifically in rural communities,” Waldrum said.
Waldrum, a Nashville, Tennessee native, was appointed dean of the Brody School of Medicine in July 2021. He was named chief executive officer (CEO) of Vidant Health in June 2015; he also has overseen the transition of Vidant Health to ECU Health. Before coming to eastern North Carolina, he served as the president and chief executive officer of The University of Arizona Health Network. Prior to that, he was the CEO of the University of Alabama Hospital at Birmingham (UAB) and vice president of the UAB Health system. During his tenure at UAB where he was an active member in the UAB School of Medicine, he also served as chief operating officer and chief information officer of the UAB Health System.
Waldrum has previously served on the AAMC board and was named chair-elect of the Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems for the association in 2020.
Waldrum graduated from the University of The South Sewanee in Tennessee with a bachelor’s degree in English and the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine. He completed his residency at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, received a master’s degree in epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health, and earned an MBA from the University of Michigan.
The AAMC is a nonprofit association dedicated to improving the health of people everywhere through medical education, health care, medical research and community collaborations. Its members comprise all 155 accredited U.S. and 16 accredited Canadian medical schools; approximately 400 teaching hospitals and health systems, including Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and more than 70 academic societies.