by Kahthy Witney
Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, professor of Anesthesiology, Surgery, Biomedical Informatics and Health Policy, will be departing Vanderbilt to become director of the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin (AHW) Endowment and senior associate dean at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) School of Medicine effective Sept. 1.
Ehrenfeld will lead strategy and operations of the AHW Endowment toward its goal of improving the health of Wisconsin residents.
Ehrenfeld has held numerous leadership positions at VUMC since 2010 including associate director of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Informatics Research Division; director of education research in the Office of Health Sciences Education; and director of the Program for LGBTQ Health. He is a fellow of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the American Medical Informatics Association.
“I’ve known Jesse for his entire faculty career, which has been meteoric. He has made serial pathfinding contributions in perioperative clinical informatics, perioperative informatics education, LGBT health and the mitigation of health inequities overall,” said Warren Sandberg, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Anesthesiology. “I think his influence on policy to allow trans people to serve openly in the military is under-appreciated but was foundational. Any one of these contributions would have been the work of a satisfying and productive career. This next opportunity is a unique vehicle for Jesse to amplify his beneficial impact on the health of the communities around him, and, though I will miss him dearly, I could not think of a better next step for him.”
Ehrenfeld earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania; an MD degree from the University of Chicago — Pritzker School of Medicine, and a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard University School of Public Health. He completed an internship in medicine; a residency in anesthesiology in the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, and an informatics research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Ehrenfeld was elected to the American Medical Association board of trustees in 2014 and is currently chair-elect. For the past decade, Ehrenfeld has advocated on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) individuals. In 2017 the Tennessee Hospital Association honored Ehrenfeld with a Diversity Champion Award, which recognizes leaders who have made outstanding contributions in leadership and workplace diversity and inclusion and demonstrated commitment to a diverse workforce.
In 2018, he received the inaugural Sexual and Gender Minority Research Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award recognizes early stage investigators who have made substantial contributions related to sexual and gender minority.
Ehrenfeld is a combat veteran and former U.S. Navy Commander who deployed to Afghanistan during both Operation Enduring Freedom and Resolute Support Mission.
“Over the past nine years, I have been incredibly fortunate to help advance our education and training programs, our informatics research capabilities, and our ability to care for LGBTQ patients. I am most proud, however, of the trust I received from the hundreds of patients who gave me the personal privilege of caring for them in the operating room,” Ehrenfeld said.
