50 Most Influential Physician Executives – 2015
Rank: 7
James Madara
Executive vice president and CEO, American Medical Association
Dr. James Madara is executive vice president and CEO of the American Medical Association, serving in those roles since 2011. Madara, 64, has been instrumental in establishing the organization's long-term strategic plan that focuses on such tenets as improving patient outcomes, restructuring medical education to match the evolving needs of the healthcare landscape, and defining and disseminating the operational characteristics that promote practice satisfaction and sustainability. A pathologist by training, Madara is recognized as an authority on epithelial cell biology and gastrointestinal disease. Madara has served as president of the American Board of Pathology, editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Pathology, and is a past recipient of a prestigious MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health.