Washington, D.C., November 3, 2008—Elliot J. Sussman, M.D., M.B.A., president and chief executive officer of Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network (LVHHN), began his one-year term as chair of the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) in conjunction with the association's 119th annual meeting. Dr. Sussman succeeds Dr. Robert J. Desnick, professor and chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and physician-in-chief of the Department of Medical Genetics and Genomics at The Mount Sinai Hospital.

An internist, professor, and administrator, Dr. Sussman has overseen LVHHN since 1993. The hospital network is a clinical affiliate of the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, where Dr. Sussman also serves as the Leonard Parker Pool Professor of Health Systems Management, professor of medicine, and professor of public health sciences. He is also former chair of the AAMC Council of Teaching Hospitals and Health Systems.

From 1989 to 1993, Dr. Sussman was associate dean and associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Division of the Biological Sciences Pritzker School of Medicine. He also served as executive director for clinical practices and associate professor of medicine for the University of Pennsylvania, and associate administrator and director of the clinical effectiveness program at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Sussman earned a B.A. degree, magna cum laude, from Yale University, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his medical residency training and fellowship in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he also served as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar. In addition to serving as a trustee of LVHHN, Dr. Sussman serves on the boards of several local and national organizations. He is a member of the Society of Medical Administrators and the Healthcare Executives Study Society.

Deborah E. Powell, M.D., dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School (UMMS), assistant vice president for clinical affairs, and McKnight Presidential Leadership Chair at the University of Minnesota, was named chair-elect of the AAMC today. She will succeed Dr. Sussman as chair of the association next year.

Dr. Powell is a board-certified surgical pathologist and a medical educator with more than 30 years of experience in academic medicine. Since joining UMMS as dean in 2002, she has played an integral part in transforming medical education and fostering more focused investments in research at the institution. The school has instituted a "Flexible M.D." program that allows students to earn their medical degrees on a flexible timetable without being penalized financially. The program is part of the Medical Education Development 2010 initiative, in development under her leadership, and will encourage a more "learner-centered education for patient-centered care." In addition, with the university's Institute of Technology, Dr. Powell founded the new Institute for Engineering in Medicine, which aims to foster interdisciplinary research in medical devices and other biomedical engineering areas.

In 1997, she was named executive dean and vice chancellor for clinical affairs at the University of Kansas and, prior to that, served as the vice chair and director of diagnostic pathology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington before being named chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at that same institution.

Dr. Powell is currently a board member of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and has been a former president of both the American Board of Pathology and the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology. She is a former chair of the AAMC Council of Deans, a former member of the Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health Office of Research in Women's Health, and a former member of the board of trustees of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

Dr. Powell received her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine and completed her residency training at Georgetown University Medical Center and the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health.

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The Association of American Medical Colleges is a not-for-profit association representing all 131 accredited U.S. and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 68 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and nearly 90 academic and scientific societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC represents 128,000 faculty members, 75,000 medical students, and 110,000 resident physicians. Additional information about the AAMC and U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals is available at www.aamc.org/newsroom.

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