Panel to Help Guide Improvements in Academic Partnerships

WASHINGTON – A newly formed Veterans Affairs (VA) advisory committee will provide a forum for joint planning and coordination between VA and the nation’s health professions schools and universities.

“Our long-standing partnership with the academic community has been of enormous benefit to Veterans,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “Honoring the sacrifice of those injured or ill from military service with state of the art health care must be a top priority.”

The new 14-member VA advisory committee will advise Secretary Shinseki and Under Secretary for Health Robert A. Petzel on ways to further enhance what has become the largest public-private partnership in VA’s history and a cornerstone of American health professions education.

Dr. Jordan J. Cohen will chair the VA National Academic Affiliations Council. A professor of medicine and public health at the George Washington University, Cohen has served VA in numerous roles over the years, most recently as chairman of the Blue Ribbon Panel on VA-Medical School Affiliations. Establishing a permanent advisory committee, with a broad membership across the health professions, was one of more than 50 recommendations of this blue ribbon panel.

“This distinguished new committee will advise VA leadership on all matters affecting relationships between VA and the health professions community” said VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Robert A. Petzel. “The panel’s deep understanding of the inter-dependence of patient care, education and research the will guide our strategic planning as we reshape the Veterans health system for continued excellence in the 21^st century.”

The Council will hold a series of public meetings, invite testimony, and submit periodic progress reports to VA leadership. The Council’s charter grants the new committee wide authority to examine all aspects of VA’s relationships with the academic community and to recommend proposals for policy, regulatory and legislative changes.

Meetings will be announced in the Federal Register, with the initial meeting expected in the first quarter of 2012.

Members of the new VA National Academic Affiliations Council were chosen to represent Veterans and the health professions academic community, including health professions deans and faculty, health care administrators, and leaders of key professional stakeholder associations and organizations. A list of the members is attached.

Membership VA National Academic Affiliations Council

• Norman B. Anderson, PhD of Arlington, Va., is Chief Executive Officer of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Anderson has held numerous positions within academic psychology and the federal government and has positioned the American Psychological Association as an integral part not just of mental health but the overall health care establishment as well.

• Geraldine D. Bednash, PhD, RN, FAAN of Arlington, Va., is Chief Executive Officer of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. For over 20 years, Dr. Bednash has overseen an organization that is the national voice of the nation’s largest health care profession. She also currently serves as a founding member and director of the Interprofessional Education Collaborative and the Chair of the Board of the Nursing Alliance for Quality Care, a nursing and consumer directed alliance to improve health care quality and safety.

• Jordan J. Cohen, MD (Chair) of Washington, D.C., is Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the George Washington University. Dr. Cohen has held numerous positions within academic medicine, including the presidency of the Association of American Medical Colleges from 1994 to 2006. He has served as a member of the VA Under Secretary for Health’s Special Medical Advisory Group and chaired the Blue Ribbon Panel on VA-Medical School Affiliations.

• Malcolm Cox, MD (Ex-Officio) of Media, Pa., is VA’s Chief Academic Affiliations Officer, where he oversees the largest health professions training program in the nation. Previously he served as Dean for Medical Education at Harvard Medical School, Associate Dean for Clinical Education at the University of Pennsylvania, and Chief of Medical Services at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. Dr. Cox currently serves on the National Advisory Board of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, the National Board of Medical Examiners, and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

• David W. Gorman of Greenville, S.C., served as the Executive Director, Disabled American Veterans National Service and Legislative Headquarters in Washington, D.C., from 1995 to 2011. Mr. Gorman, a combat-disabled veteran of the Vietnam War, enjoys a reputation as one of the Nation’s foremost experts on VA’s complex array of services and programs designed to assist America’s Veterans and their families.

• David M. Irby, Ph.D. of Novato, Calif., is Professor of Medicine and a former Vice Dean for Education at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. He is also a former senior scholar at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where he recently co-directed a national study on the professional preparation of physicians, which has emphasized the need for reform of the nation’s present medical education system.

• Darrell G. Kirch, MD of Bethesda, Md., is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Since 2006, Dr. Kirch has overseen an organization that is the voice of the nation’s medical schools and teaching hospitals. Prior to this Dr. Kirch served as Senior Vice President for Health Affairs, Dean of the School of Medicine, and Chief Executive Officer of the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Kirch is also the current chair of the VA Under Secretary for Health’s Special Medical Advisory Group.

• Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD of Princeton, N.J., is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Prior to assuming leadership of the nation’s largest health professions philanthropy, Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey served as Senior Vice president and Director of its Health Care Group, overseeing all the Foundation’s efforts in the areas of access and chronic illness care. Previously, Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey directed the Institute of Aging at the University of Pennsylvania and served as Associate Chief of Staff for Geriatrics and Extended Care at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center.

• Kathleen A. Long, PhD, RN of Gainesville, Fla., is Dean of the College of Nursing and an Associate Provost at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Dr. Long is a founding member of the VA Nursing Academy, a national project to enhance partnerships between VA and the nation’s nursing schools. Dr. Long was an invited member of the Institute of Medicine’s Military Nursing Research Review Committee and has consulted with the Graduate School of Nursing at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. She is also a past-president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and has served on an advisory board to the U.S. Office of Rural Health Policy.

• Michael F. Mayo-Smith, MD, MPH (Ex-Officio) of Franklin, N.H., is the Director of the VA New England Healthcare System, which includes 8 VA Medical Centers and 37 community-based outpatient clinics throughout New England serving a population of almost 1 million Veterans. Prior to his appointment as Network Director, Dr. Mayo-Smith served as the National Chief Consultant for Primary Care, Director of Primary Care at the VA New England Healthcare System, and Associate Chief of Staff for Ambulatory Care at the Manchester VA Medical Center.

• J. Lloyd Michener, MD of Chapel Hill, N.C., is Chair of the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. Dedicated to changing the three behaviors that cause the majority of chronic diseases – physical inactivity, poor nutrition and smoking – Dr. Michener has overseen the Obesity/Chronic Disease Prevention Program of the Kate B. Reynolds Trust and the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Commission. Dr. Michener also serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Advisory Council of the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health, and is Past President of the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research.

• Claire Pomeroy, M.D., M.B.A. of Sacramento, Calif., is Vice Chancellor for Human Health Sciences and Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis. As Vice Chancellor, she oversees the University of California, Davis, Health System, including the medical school, the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, the teaching hospital and the physician practice group. She has championed interprofessional education, founded the Center for Reducing Health Disparities and led the establishment of Rural-PRIME, a program specifically designed to prepare physicians to practice in underserved rural communities.

• Wayne J. Riley, MD, MPH, MBA, MACP of Nashville, Tenn., is President and Chief Executive Officer of Meharry Medical College, one of nation’s three Historically Black academic health centers. Previously he served as Vice President and Vice Dean for Health Affairs and Governmental Relations at Baylor College of Medicine, where he was also a practicing general internist and a member of the medical staff and the Deans’ Committee at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center.

• Stephen C. Shannon, DO, MPH of Kennebunkport, Maine, is President of the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, where he serves as the national spokesperson for the nation’s osteopathic medical schools. Previously he served as Vice President for Health Services and Dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine at the University of New England. He is a current member of the Advisory Committee on Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry and a member of the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners.