Next week, Robert M. Wah, MD (pictured left), will become the 169th president of the AMA. He has a long history of accepting and overcoming challenges, which should serve the AMA well as physicians move into the demanding future of health care.
A board-certified reproductive endocrinologist and OB-GYN, Robert M. Wah, MD, has served more than 23 years on active duty as a captain in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. He practices and teaches at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Wah was division head and vice chairman of the Navy’s largest OB-GYN training program and is currently chief medical officer for Computer Sciences Corporation.
Born and raised in Oregon, Dr. Wah witnessed his father overcome a variety of struggles to excel in his field. His father was a dentist, coming from China as a young boy to settle in Oregon. Before being admitted to the United States, he was held at California’s Angel Island and underwent intensive questioning by American officials. The experience had a profound influence on Dr. Wah’s family.
“My father would say, ‘Look, it’s clear we’re going to stand out here in America, so if you’re going to stand out, you should work to be outstanding,’” Dr. Wah said. “I think that stuck with all of us. My parents always had an expectation of excellence in their children.”
Dr. Wah majored in chemistry at the University of Oregon and graduated Phi Beta Kappa before moving on to the Oregon Health Sciences University, where he received his medical degree. As an admitted “scope and scale junkie,” Dr. Wah was drawn to the Navy for the opportunity to make an impact on a large number of patients in a big system.
Dr. Wah’s experience in the military, combined with a strong personal view of accepting challenges as new opportunities, opened up a number of leadership positions, including representing first his medical school class and later all OB-GYN residents. He’s been a part of organized medicine ever since, appreciating the way diverse voices can solve problems.
“The power of the AMA is in its role as a single umbrella organization that covers all physicians, across specialty, geography, practice type or career stage,” Dr. Wah said. “We have the ability to convene all the parties that need to come to the table to work on solutions to the challenges physicians face today. It’s the bringing together of different perspectives that makes the organization stronger.”
Dr. Wah’s love of scope and scale translated well to health information technology, in which he is a nationally recognized expert. He works to ensure that health IT is developed and deployed with physician input, making sure software helps physicians instead of hindering their daily practice. He’s worked for two members of the Cabinet of the United States: the secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense, managing health IT across the department, and the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, setting up and managing the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
Dr. Wah said he looks forward to the AMA’s expanding work in its Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative, calling the work a great investment in the future of physicians and the patients they serve.
The overall goal of physicians is improving the health of their patients, Dr. Wah said, which is what the AMA’s Improving Health Outcomes initiative is all about. “It’s exciting to look at the scope and scale of the impact we can have on the population in the two areas of type 2 diabetes and hypertension,” he said.
Dr. Wah said the AMA's initiative to advance Professional Satisfaction and Practice Sustainability will be important for physicians in an increasingly burdensome administrative and regulatory environment.
“As physicians, we play an important and powerful role,” he said. “We need to come together to overcome some of the challenges we face, and we need to share our diverse perspectives and experiences to take full advantage of opportunities that innovate and improve care for our patients.”
