Two IHPI members named National Academy of Medicine fellows

Adapted from the National Academy of Medicine

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) has selected five outstanding health professionals for the class of 2017 NAM Fellows. They were chosen based on their professional qualifications and accomplishments, reputations as scholars, and relevance of current field expertise to the work of the NAM and the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The fellows will collaborate with eminent researchers, policy experts, and clinicians from across the country during their two-year fellowship. They will help facilitate initiatives convened by the National Academies to provide nonpartisan, evidence-based guidance to national, state, and local policymakers, academic leaders, health care administrators, and the public.

The class of 2017 NAM Fellows includes two members of the University of Michigan faculty, both of whom are members of IHPI:

American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) Fellow
Mahshid Abir, M.D., M.Sc., assistant professor, department of emergency medicine, University of Michigan; and director, acute care research unit, Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation, Ann Arbor, Mich.

James C. Puffer, M.D./American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) Fellow
Tammy Chang, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., assistant professor, department of family medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

In addition, the program includes a fellowship named for Gilbert S. Omenn, M.D., Ph.D., also an IHPI fellow.

“The NAM Fellowship is designed for health science scholars who are one to 10 years out from completion of a residency or receipt of a doctoral degree to participate hands-on in our process of providing health advice to the nation,” said Victor J. Dzau, president of the National Academy of Medicine. “Through this experience, the fellows will be able to build a network of mentors whom the fellows can call upon throughout their careers. They also will study health care challenges across a range of disciplines and viewpoints to develop sound health care strategies and policies.”

Each fellow will continue in his or her primary academic post while engaging part time over a two-year period in the National Academies’ health and science policy work. Each will work with an expert study committee or roundtable related to his or her professional interests, including contributing to its reports or other products. A flexible research stipend will be awarded to every fellow.

The overall purpose of the NAM Fellowship program is to enable talented, early career health science scholars to participate actively in the work of the Academies and to further their careers as future leaders in the field. For more information, please click here.