- Amar Kelkar, MD, MPH
- Candidate for AMA Board of Trustees, Young Physician
- Term
- The end goal of policy must be better patient care
- Frontline clinician with a decade in AMA leadership
- AI needs to be safe, ethical and physician-led
- Recognized expert in health care financing and AI
- I am committed to building a true two-way dialogue
- Building trust among membership and patients
- Additional resources
Elections will be held at the Annual Meeting of the House of Delegates on June 9, 2026.
Officers and five councils are elected by the American Medical Association House of Delegates (HOD) at the Annual Meeting. Elections for contested contests are held during a special election session under the supervision of the Committee on Rules and Credentials and the chief teller, who are appointed by the speakers. Voting is conducted by secret ballot.
Amar Kelkar, MD, MPH
Candidate for AMA Board of Trustees, Young Physician
Term: 2026-2030
The end goal of policy must be better patient care
Dr. Kelkar is a clinician first, who understands the realities of modern practice. Specializing in stem cell transplantation at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, he leads the adult gene therapy program and is the director of the Transplant Survivorship Clinic. Having trained and practiced in a variety of communities, from rural Illinois and suburban Florida to urban New York and Boston, he sees patients referred from across the Northeast, giving him a daily view of the systemic barriers to accessing health care.
Dr. Kelkar has deep experience turning policy into action. After a decade in the House of Delegates, he has served as the RFS delegate, chair of Reference Committee B at the 2025 Annual Meeting, and on the Council on Legislation. Passing policy is nothing without action, and he consistently builds coalitions to implement directives. Following the Hahnemann Hospital closure in 2019, he worked with a coalition of HOD delegates to write and pass policy to protect and assist displaced trainees. He then followed up by communicating regularly with the AMA General Counsel, helping win tail coverage through a class action suit, and ensuring transfer of visas and residency funding to their new training programs. He also helped lead a coalition to write a definitive resolution on reproductive health, aligning AMA policies that led to clear AMA advocacy directly cited by the White House following the release of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision in 2022.
Frontline clinician with a decade in AMA leadership
AI needs to be safe, ethical and physician-led
Dr. Kelkar is a recognized expert in health care financing, serving as an advisor to the AMA RUC for hematology, testifying in his State House on reimbursement for biomarker testing, and publishing in top medical journals on drug pricing. He will push the AMA to publish a digital payment reform ‘scorecard’ to transparently track progress on Medicare and Medicaid reform, tackle drug pricing as a threat to practice viability, and actively combat the budget neutrality mandate.
He is also leading the way in ensuring AI in health care is safe, ethical, and physician-led. As a physician-scientist conducting research on AI supportive care, he will advocate to expand the AI Pilot Network, codify AI medical ethics, and push for practical regulatory guardrails like an “AI Safety Label.”
With this expertise, he is prepared to help the AMA lead on the two most urgent issues that will impact medicine over the next four years.
Recognized expert in health care financing and AI
I am committed to building a true two-way dialogue
Dr. Kelkar believes the AMA's success in fighting existential threats to practice viability, public health, science, and the patient-physician relationship hinges on representing the voice of all of medicine on behalf of patients. To accomplish this, he is committed to building a true two-way dialogue between the board, the House of Delegates, and the thousands of physicians who have never attended an AMA meeting. His door is always open to hear the priorities of his colleagues.
He firmly believes the AMA must fiercely defend patient access and public health as core to its mission. When the public trusts that physicians are fighting for patients, advocacy for payment reform becomes what it truly is: a fight to preserve access to care. Dr. Kelkar respectfully asks for your vote for the Young Physician seat on the AMA Board.
To share your priorities or learn more, please contact Dr. Kelkar at [email protected].
Building trust among membership and patients
Additional resources
- Visit the AMA elections page for information on other candidates running for office.
- Find up to date information for the June Annual Meeting of the HOD.
