

Justin List

Justin List
M.D., M.A.R., M.Sc., FACP
2013-15 ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON CLINICAL SCHOLAR
Director, Health Care Outcomes, Office of Health Equity, Veterans Health Administration
Justin List, MD, MAR, MSc, FACP, completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program (CSP) at the University of Michigan and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System in 2015. While earning his medical degree at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in 2010, List spent a year in Uganda on tuberculosis and HIV case-finding research as an NIH/Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholar. Mentors in both the Fogarty program and his subsequent internal medicine residency at Yale University urged List to consider the CSP program to pursue his growing interest in implementation science.
List decided to apply to the RWJ/CSP program, and says he was thrilled to match to U-M’s training site. “It was my first choice. I really identified with the programmatic structure there; it absolutely connected with how I think.”
He entered the CSP in 2013 with a background in medical ethics (including a medical ethics fellowship with the American Medical Association and masters-level training at Yale Divinity School), global health, and clinical research, but little health services research (HSR) experience.
List soon immersed himself in a cohort of fellow scholars at U-M who shared both his interests in developing specific skills in health policy and organizational leadership, and his passion for exploring issues related to the humanity of medicine in the context of HSR. At U-M, he discovered a vibrant community where he could cultivate his research interests across global health chronic disease policy and implementation science, as well as enhance the wide-ranging skillset that he has used to achieve his diverse career path to this day.

During the fellowship, List was involved in a project assessing the use of mobile health technologies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and he also worked on evaluating coalitions of community health workers (CHWs) in southeast Detroit and across Michigan with Michele Heisler and Edie Kieffer. “This work was really meaningful to me, and also connected to a lot of my global health experiences, since CHWs are much more integrated within healthcare systems in other under-resourced settings around the world,” he says.
List also completed a guest researcher rotation at the CDC, where he worked on projects in global health cancer policy, including an analysis of resources being used in LMICs to address disparities in cervical cancer screening, and also took a deep dive in examining the CDC’s chronic disease prevention portfolio.
“I felt really supported during the program in exploring what I’d describe as ‘very broad’ research topics of interest, and in following what was not the most linear pathway,” List says. “This actually became a tremendous asset to me that has played out in the diverse career I’ve had since I left the program.”
List’s first post-fellowship role was Director of Clinical and Scientific Affairs in what was formerly known as the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control at the New York City Health Department. Among many duties there, he led a physician education program throughout the city, oversaw the Cancer Prevention Control Program, which was primarily focused on colorectal cancer screening and early detection, and put his HSR skills to work as an internal scientific advisor and reviewer on department publications prior to submission.
“The support for following broad research interests during the program became a tremendous asset to me that has played out in the diverse career I’ve had since I left the program.”
– Justin List
After four years, List became assistant VP of Special Projects with NYC Health + Hospitals, the city’s public health care system, which, at the time, encompassed an FQHC with 50 clinics and a dozen hospitals. Soon after the world was enveloped in the COVID-19 pandemic, and List was one of the leads charged with establishing long COVID centers of excellence. He also served as Chief Quality Officer for the system’s FQHC and ran its quality management program, and was also part of the organization’s inaugural Heath Equity Council, which was founded to advance health equity through its external work and within its own workforce.
In 2022, List shifted directions, taking on the position of Director of Health Care Outcomes in the Veterans Health Administration Office of Health Equity. Like many of his previous roles, List’s work at the VA spans clinical, operational, and research domains. List says this is an “exciting time to be doing equity work at the VA because President Biden has so many executive orders that really support the VA in advancing this kind of work with very clear leadership directives,” he says.

Part of his team’s job includes helping guide equity-focused quality improvement projects within the VA. His unit also helps ensure the VA’s 172 medical centers and 1,000 clinical sites have access to tools to help them meet the Joint Commission’s recent requirement to make improving health care equity a quality and safety priority. List also has his own project on mitigating racial bias within VA clinical algorithms.
List names several skills honed during the CSP that have become essential in his career. “The ability to critically appraise the literature and what conclusions you can draw from it in order to inform policy or to make statements on behalf of agencies – this is absolutely a skill I got from my CSP training,” List says. “It’s incredibly valuable, and not something that’s common for clinicians going into a government or non-healthcare, non-academic setting.”
“Also, physicians are generally not taught leadership in their training,” List adds. “To the best of my knowledge, the CSP is one of the few leadership-training types of fellowships that really help you know yourself, and teach emotional intelligence in ways that are huge assets to becoming healthcare provider leaders in a variety of settings.”
Equally as important to his fellowship was the “cohort effect” of navigating the program with an incredibly collaborative group of scholars at U-M – and across the CSP network – that List remains in close touch with today. He also notes that CSP alums have been part of his three post-fellowship career experiences. “There’s a little bit of magic in having a great group come together for a couple years, but it’s been very powerful in my life since then,” List says.
October 2024