NYMC > Commencement > History, Awards and Traditions > Previous Honorary Degree Recipients > 2016 - Steven Wartman

2016 Commencement Speaker

‌‌‌‌‌The Association of Academic Health Center (AAHC) President Steven Wartman, M.D., Ph.D., a general internist and sociologist who has spent more than 25 years academic medicine, will be New York Medical College's 2016 commencement speaker.

In July 2005, Dr. Wartman became the third president of the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC), a non-profit association based in Washington, D.C., that seeks to advance health and well-being through the vigorous leadership of the multifaceted institutions that educate the next generation of health professionals, conduct cutting edge biomedical and clinical research, and offer comprehensive patient care from the basic to the most advanced levels. Prior to assuming this position, he was Executive Vice President for Academic and Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. Dr. Wartman’s more than 30 year career in academic medicine includes chairing a department of medicine at two institutions and being the founding director of a division of general internal medicine.

Dr. Wartman, an internist and sociologist, is board certified in internal medicine and a Master of the American College of Physicians. He received his A.B. from Cornell University and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Johns Hopkins University. He was also a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Johns Hopkins and a Henry Luce Scholar in Indonesia.

Dr. Wartman is currently recognized internationally for his work in the organization and management of academic health centers, where he has taken the lead on critical issues such as the need for alignment of an institution’s clinical, research, and education programs. In 2008, he founded AAHC International™ (AAHCI), a global organization dedicated to improving health and well-being worldwide. In 2012, he edited Confluence of Policy and Leadership in Academic Health Science Centers, published by Radcliffe Press, which for the first time provided a comprehensive overview of the academic health center enterprise. He authored in 2014 a new guide, Searching for Leadership: Best Practices for Academic Institutions, which describes characteristics of successful leaders and a detailed analysis of the process to select them. In 2015 Elsevier published The Transformation of Academic Health Science Centers, the definitive work on the future of these vital institutions, which he edited.

He has received numerous awards and honorary degrees, most recently the 2015 Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award.