Chief Academic Officer, Michigan Medicine
Debra F. Weinstein, MD, took on her dual role at Michigan Medicine in November, 2021. She oversees the academic mission, which includes the medical school, graduate medical education, continuing medical education and faculty affairs. She also serves as the principal dean’s office liaison for the clinical department chairs and several center directors.
Dr. Weinstein joined the leadership team after serving as vice president for graduate medical education (GME) at Mass General Brigham in Boston. In this role, she was responsible for more than 300 GME programs with 2,400 residents and fellows and led local and national initiatives focused on enhancing GME. She was an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a senior physician in Internal Medicine/Gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and is a trustee emerita of the MGH Institute for Health Professions.
Dr. Weinstein served as the principal investigator of a $2 million “Reimagining Residency” grant from the American Medical Association focused on competency-based, time-variable GME, as deputy editor of Academic Medicine, and as chair of the oversight committees for the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Graduate Medical Education. She is a member of the New England Journal’s Perspectives Advisory Board.
As a national medical education leader, Dr. Weinstein has served on the board of the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Governance and Financing of GME, and as chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Group on Resident Affairs. She is a current board member of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) and the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER). Dr. Weinstein was a 2006-07 American Council on Education Fellow and is a recipient of the ACGME’s Parker Palmer Courage to Lead Award as well as the John C. Gienapp Award — the organization’s highest honor.
Dr. Weinstein graduated from Wellesley College, where she majored in music and conducted the college orchestra. She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed clinical training in internal medicine and gastroenterology at MGH.
What do you consider to be your top priorities for the near- and long-term?
My near-term priority is getting to know more of the Michigan Medicine community (beyond those who I work with most directly). I also am keeping an eye out for opportunities to consolidate committees and reduce the number of meetings for all of us. Everyone needs to preserve time and space to address the longer-term objectives. Working on big, important challenges — enhancing diversity and inclusion, innovating how we educate and enhancing institutional culture and individual well-being — must not be eclipsed by the demands of day-to-day operations.
What excites you most about your role in educating the doctors and scientists of the future?
Each person who comes through this institution is poised to have a positive impact, whether by treating patients, advancing science or improving health care. Some will quite literally change the world. Giving our students the best possible preparation and experience, and helping them to harness their talent, overcome challenges and connect to their passions, will have an exponential effect. While I really enjoy interacting with learners one-on-one, the scale of impact at the institutional level is breathtaking.
Given your experiences as a physician and educator, what advice would you give to students entering the medical field?
This is a particularly challenging time to enter medicine — but also particularly compelling. Because there are so many different career paths for physicians, I encourage students to think about what experiences and issues seem to resonate most deeply with them so that they can choose a specialty, practice setting and mix of activities (patient care, research, innovation, leadership roles, etc.) that will inspire them far into the future.
