Dr. Steven J. Stack of Lexington is sworn in as 170th president of the American Medical Association
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| Dr. Steven J. Stack |
He is the organization’s youngest president in the past 160 years and is the first board-certified emergency-room physician elected to the post.
Stack says he will focus his tenure on advancing the AMA’s three strategic areas: improving health outcomes for those with pre-diabetes and hypertension; accelerating change in medical education to ensure physicians are prepared to meet the needs of a 21st century health care system; and enhancing physician satisfaction and practice sustainability.
“I am honored and privileged to be named president of an organization that is dedicated to the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health and a profession that is working to improve the health of our nation,” Stack said in a press release. “I look forward to serving on behalf of America’s physicians to not only create a brighter future for the medical profession but a healthier America one patient at time, one family at a time and one community at a time.”
Stack gained national recognition for his expertise in health information technology while serving as chair of the AMA’s Health Information Technology Advisory Group from 2007 to 2013. He has also served on multiple federal advisory groups for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and as Secretary for eHealth Initiative, a non-profit multi-stakeholder organization committed to advancing health care through health information technology.
In Kentucky, Stack has served as medical director of the emergency departments at Saint Joseph East in Lexington and Saint Joseph Mount Sterling, both part of KentuckyOne Health. He was also previous medical director of the emergency department at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
Stack was elected to the AMA Board of Trustees in 2006. In the last eight years, he has served in many leadership positions, including chair and secretary. Prior to his service on the AMA board, he was an elected leader in numerous state, national and specialty medical associations.
He is the second Lexington physician to lead the AMA in three years. Dr. Ardis Dee Hoven, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Kentucky, led the group in 2013-14.