ABIM Foundation Announces Its New Chair and Trustees

The ABIM Foundation announced today the election of Frederick P. Cerise, MD, MPH, as Chair and the appointment of two new members of its Board of Trustees: Asher Tulsky, MD, and Irving Washington. The Board also elected Bruce Leff, MD, as Vice Chair and Odette Bolano, FACHE, MHA, BSN as Secretary-Treasurer.

“The expertise that Dr. Tulsky and Mr. Washington bring to the ABIM Foundation is invaluable and the entire team is already grateful for their leadership,” said Richard Baron, MD, MACP, President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and ABIM Foundation. “Under the guidance of Dr. Cerise as Chair, we are well positioned to continue to advance medical professionalism and foster a more equitable, trustworthy, and effective health care system.”

“As we welcome Dr. Tulsky and Mr. Washington to the ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees, I’m confident that their unique perspectives and backgrounds – Dr. Tulsky as a former Chair of the ABIM Council and Mr. Washington as a communications expert and leader in addressing health misinformation and trust – will enable us to innovate and broaden our approach to advancing medical professionalism,” said Dr. Cerise, President and CEO of Parkland Health.

About Newly Elected and Appointed Trustees:

• Odette C. Bolano, FACHE, MHA, BSN, (Secretary-Treasurer) is the former President and CEO, West Region, Trinity Health, where she provided executive leadership, strategic and operational oversight for a five-hospital system, over 100 clinics, physician enterprises with 1,200 providers, health plans in Idaho / Oregon and California and a number of joint ventures. Prior to this expanded role, she served as President / CEO of Saint Alphonsus Health System which has health facilities, a health plan, a clinically integrated network, and physician clinics across Idaho and Oregon and a number of joint ventures. Before joining Trinity Health, Ms. Bolano served as Senior Vice President of Kaiser Permanente – East Bay in Oakland, and in other senior executive positions with health care systems in Texas and Arizona.
• Frederick P. Cerise, MD, MPH, (Chair) has served as the President and CEO of Parkland Health since 2014. His previous roles include the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and the Vice President for Health Affairs and Medical Education of the Louisiana State University System. He served as a Commissioner on the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, and he serves on the board of KFF.
• Bruce Leff, MD, (Vice Chair) is a board certified internist and geriatrician and Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he is the Director of the Center for Transformative Geriatric Research. He holds joint appointments in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Department of Community and Public Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.
• Asher Tulsky, MD, (Trustee) is a board certified internist and Associate Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. He is the immediate past chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine Council from 2022-2024.
• Irving Washington (Trustee) is the Senior Vice President and Executive Director of the Health Misinformation and Trust Initiative at KFF, where he leads a new initiative focused on identifying health misinformation to improve understanding of critical health news and research. Before joining KFF he was the CEO of the Online News Association. He currently serves as Vice Chair on the board of the American Journalism Project and previously served on the American Society of Association Executives Board.

As national health care leaders and advocates, the Board guides the Foundation’s mission to advance medical professionalism. The 2024-2025 ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees includes:

• Chair: Frederick P. Cerise, MD, MPH, President and Chief Executive Officer, Parkland Health
• Immediate Past-Chair: David L. Coleman, MD, Research Professor, Interim Director, Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, Yale School of Medicine
• Vice Chair: Bruce Leff, MD, Director, Center for Transformative Geriatric Research, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• Secretary-Treasurer: Odette C. Bolano, FACHE, MHA, BSN, former President and CEO, West Region Trinity Health
• Richard J. Baron, MD, MACP, President and CEO, American Board of Internal Medicine and ABIM Foundation
• Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA, Executive Director, John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital
• Yul D. Ejnes, MD, MACP, Co-Founder, Coastal Medical; Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Alpert Medical School of Brown University
• Margaret Flinter, APRN, PhD, FAAN, FAANP, Senior Vice President and Clinical Director, Moses Weitzman Health System and Community Health Center, Inc.
• Rajeev Jain, MD, FACP, FASGE, AGAF, Partner, Texas Digestive Disease Consultants
• Ali M. Khan, MD, MPP, FACP, Chief Medical Officer – Medicare, Aetna/CVS Health
• Reginald Tucker Seeley, MA, ScM, ScD, Principal and Owner, Health Equity Strategies and Solutions
• Asher A. Tulsky, MD, Associate Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine
• Irving Washington, Senior Vice President and Executive Director, Health Misinformation and Trust Initiative, KFF
• Heather Comer Yun, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Professor of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; Colonel (Retired), United States Air Force

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About the ABIM Foundation

The ABIM Foundation’s mission is to advance medical professionalism to improve the health care system by collaborating with physicians and physician leaders, medical trainees, health care delivery systems, payers, policymakers, consumer organizations and patients to foster a shared understanding of professionalism and how they can adopt the tenets of professionalism in practice. To learn more about the ABIM Foundation, visit www.abimfoundation.org and connect on LinkedIn.

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