Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH

Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, was elected president-elect of the American Medical Association in June 2022. He is a senior associate dean, tenured professor of anesthesiology and director of the “Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment” at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He was elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees in 2014.

Dr. Ehrenfeld divides his time among clinical practice, teaching, research and directing a $560-million statewide health philanthropy. He also has an appointment as an adjunct professor of anesthesiology and health policy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and as an adjunct professor of surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. Dr. Ehrenfeld is a consultant to the World Health Organization Digital Health Technical Advisory Group and previously served as co-chair of the Navy Surgeon General’s Taskforce on Personalized and Digital Medicine and as a special advisor to the 20th U.S. Surgeon General.

In addition to his work with the AMA, Dr. Ehrenfeld has served on the governing boards of the American Society of Anesthesiologists Resident Component, the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Illinois State Medical Society. He also served as speaker of the house of delegates of the Massachusetts Medical Society for six years.

Dr. Ehrenfeld’s research, which focuses on understanding how information technology can improve surgical safety and patient outcomes, has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Defense, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, and the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research. He currently serves on the National Academy of Medicine’s Health Policy Fellowships and Leadership Programs Advisory Committee.

His work has led to publication of more than 275 peer-reviewed manuscripts. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Medical Systems and has co-authored 22 clinical textbooks that have been translated into multiple languages. Dr. Ehrenfeld has received numerous awards for his research and is a recipient of several prestigious teaching awards.

For the past two decades, Dr. Ehrenfeld has advocated on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals. In 2018, in recognition of his outstanding research contributions, he received the inaugural Sexual and Gender Minority Research Investigator Award from the director of the NIH.