Vice Chancellor Barish Appointed to Board of the Association of American Medical Colleges

Dr. Robert A. Barish, UIC Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs, has been appointed to the 2022-2023 Board of Directors for the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), a non-profit association dedicated to improving the health of people everywhere through medical education, health care, medical research, and community collaborations, a mission that is congruent with that of UI Health.

AAMC members comprise all 155 accredited U.S. and 16 accredited Canadian medical schools; approximately 400 teaching hospitals and health systems, including Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and more than 70 academic societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC leads and serves medical schools and teaching hospitals and the millions of individuals employed across academic medicine, including more than 191,000 full-time faculty members, 95,000 medical students, 149,000 resident physicians, and 60,000 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the biomedical sciences.

“It is indeed an honor to join the board of directors of this esteemed and important organization, and I am looking forward to contributing my experience and background to its mission of advancing excellence in healthcare,” said Dr. Barish. “UI Health is already a leader among academic health enterprises. By collaborating with other healthcare leaders from across the nation, we can continue to advance education, care delivery, and health equity.”

Prior to joining UIC as Vice Chancellor of Health affairs, Dr. Barish served as chancellor of the LSU Health Sciences Center at Shreveport from 2009 to 2015, where he provided leadership for the schools of medicine, allied health, and graduate programs; a major academic medical center; and two affiliated hospitals.

Dr. Barish spent 24 years at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He served as chief of emergency medicine from 1985 to 1996 and built a nationally recognized program. He was named associate dean for clinical affairs in 1998 and vice dean for clinical affairs in 2005.

That same year, following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast, Barish helped lead a medical regiment dispatched by the state of Maryland to deliver emergency care to more than 6,000 hurricane victims in Jefferson Parish.

In addition to his medical duties at Maryland, Barish earned an MBA from Loyola College in 1995. From 1996 to 1998, he served as the chief executive officer of UniversityCARE, a University of Maryland physician-hospital network of family-oriented health centers located in neighborhoods throughout the Baltimore metropolitan area.

Dr. Barish’s board appointment begins November 15, 2022 and will end at the conclusion of Learn Serve Lead: The AAMC Annual Meeting in November 2023.