LOS ANGELES, July 25: Ravi Thadhani, MD, MPH, a distinguished leader in academic medicine and a widely respected physician, scientist and educator, has been appointed to the inaugural role of executive vice president, chief physician executive and dean of the Medical Faculty, effective Sept. 1.
In this new senior leadership position, Thadhani will oversee the academic and clinical enterprises at Cedars-Sinai, further unifying the organization’s care delivery, research and education missions. He will lead a broad team of leaders, including department chairs, institute directors, executive vice deans, vice deans and chief medical officers.
Thadhani succeeds Shlomo Melmed, MB, ChB, who served as dean of the Medical Faculty and executive vice president of Medicine and Health Sciences for 28 years. Melmed will transition to the role of dean emeritus of the Medical Faculty and executive adviser to Cedars-Sinai President and CEO Peter L. Slavin, MD.
“Dr. Thadhani is the ideal leader to succeed Dr. Melmed,” Slavin said. “His extensive background in organizational leadership, commitment to clinical medicine and academic excellence and robust scientific record position him to advance every dimension of our enterprise.”
Thadhani most recently served as executive vice president of Clinical Affairs and chief medical officer for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Health System. In his new role, he will retain oversight of clinical quality and safety, medical affairs, and medical standards of care for the medical center and health system, while assuming additional responsibility for all academic and education programs, including Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University and the Burns and Allen Research Institute.
Thadhani began his career at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He served as vice dean for Research and Education at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center from 2017 to 2019 before returning to Harvard as professor of medicine and serving as chief academic officer and dean for Faculty Affairs at Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School.
In 2022, he was named executive vice president for health affairs at Emory University as well as vice chair of the Emory Healthcare Board of Directors and executive director of Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center, which includes Emory’s schools of medicine, public health and nursing.
Thadhani is the author or co-author of more than 300 scientific manuscripts published in leading academic journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
A leading expert in nephrology and preeclampsia, one of the leading causes of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality, Thadhani played a central role with Cedars-Sinai collaborators in developing the first Food and Drug Administration-approved test to predict the condition.
His research contributions have earned recognition at the highest levels of science and medicine. Earlier this year, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), following his election last year to the National Academy of Medicine.
“I am deeply honored to step into this role at such a pivotal moment for Cedars-Sinai,” Thadhani said. “I am grateful to Dr. Melmed for the extraordinary foundation he has built, and I look forward to working closely with our talented leaders and faculty to forge the next chapter of our academic and clinical mission.”