The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) recently announced the elections of its newest 100 members at its annual meeting. Election to the NAM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
The American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) is delighted to recognize the outstanding work of the four family physicians, Drs. Alexandra Adams, Erik Brodt, Kendall Campbell, and Jacqueline Nwando Olayiwola, elected as U.S. members; and Dr. Tricia Greenhalgh, a GP from the United Kingdom, who was elected as an international member. One hundred new members are elected annually through a selective process that recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.
Alexandra K. Adams, MD, PhD, is director of the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity, and professor of sociology and anthropology at Montana State University. Dr. Adams was elected to NAM for her work partnering with Indigenous communities in the Midwest and Montana and pioneering community-engaged research methods. She previously served as the founding director of the Collaborative Center for Health Equity, an NIH P60 center at the University of Wisconsin (UW) School of Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Adams’ leadership and research has all been community-based participatory research (CBPR), working in partnership with communities to understand and solve health challenges using both scientific rigor and crucial community knowledge.
Erik Brodt, MD, is an associate professor of family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Brodt was elected to the NAM for his work focusing on leadership in American Indian/Alaska Native workforce development and pioneering innovative methods to identify, inspire, and support American Indian/Alaska Native youth to excel. Dr. Brodt previously launched the University of Wisconsin Native American Center for Health Professions (UW-NACHP) and served as its director. Native presence at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health increased by over 800% and Native American applications increased by over 250% during his time there.
Kendall Marvin Campbell, MD, FAAFP, currently serves as the Sealy Hutchings and Lucille Wright Hutchings Chair in Family Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, and was previously selected as the NAM’s 2014-2016 Puffer/ABFM Fellow. As a Puffer/ABFM/NAM Fellow, Dr. Campbell’s work focused on assessing academic and community factors impacting the development of a diverse medical workforce to further health equity. He also co-developed a Center for Underrepresented Minorities in Academic Medicine and created a research group for underrepresented minorities in academic medicine that has published important information about barriers and opportunities for minority faculty in academic medicine.
Jacqueline Nwando Olayiwola, MD, MPH, FAAFP, serves as the chief health equity officer and senior vice president of Humana, Inc. and adjunct professor at The Ohio State University School of Medicine and College of Public Health, where she previously served as professor and chair in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. Dr. Olayiwola was elected to the NAM for her innovative work focused on health equity, primary care and health systems transformation, health information technology, and workforce diversity. She was the architect of a number of significant delivery system innovations for underserved communities and is recognized for her leadership efforts in increasing efficiency, effectiveness, and equity across U.S. health systems.
Tricia Greenhalgh, OBE, MA, MD, PhD, MBA, FMedSci, FRCP, FRCGP, FFPH, FFCI, FHEA, is professor of Primary Care Health Sciences in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Services at the University of Oxford. Dr. Greenhalgh was elected to the NAM for her major contributions to the study of innovation and knowledge translation in health care and her work to raise the profile of qualitative social sciences. Trained in the U.K as a general practitioner, she is an internationally recognized academic primary care physician. Dr. Greenhalgh serves as co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Research in Health Sciences unit at Oxford and is the author of over 400 peer-reviewed publications and 16 textbooks.
The 2021 class of new members is the NAM’s most diverse to date, composed of approximately 50% women and 50% racial and ethnic minorities. New members are elected by current members through a process that recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health. The NAM’s website states that a diversity of talent among NAM’s membership is assured by its Articles of Organization, which stipulate that at least one-quarter of the membership is selected from fields outside the health professions — for example, from such fields as law, engineering, social sciences, and the humanities.
The full story and complete list of new members can be found here: National Academy of Medicine Elects 100 New Members.
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