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.
Toluwalasé (Lasé) Ajayi, MD
Candidate for Board of Trustees
Term: 2026-2030
Practicing physician, from bedside to boardroom
I respectfully ask for your vote
I believe access must be real—built on stable coverage, fair payment and fewer barriers to care. I believe in team-based care with physicians as the leaders. I believe in strengthening our workforce by expanding training pathways, supporting diverse trainees, and fixing the friction that drives physicians out of practice. I believe in physician-led, patient-safe innovation that reduces burden and works for every patient. And I believe the AMA is strongest when we stand together, guided by our House of Delegates, as the unified voice of medicine.
I’m endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the California Medical Association, the National Medical Association, the PacWest Conference, the Pain and Palliative Medicine Specialty Section Council, the AMA Academic Physicians Section, the AMA Medical Student Section, the AMA Specialty and Service Society, and the AMA Young Physicians Section. I respectfully ask for your vote for the AMA Board of Trustees.
What I fight for and why it matters
Access that's real, not theoretical: Medicaid and Medicare stability, increased physician payment, and fewer administrative barriers. I direct a pediatric home-based palliative care program that crosses San Diego County. I also treat patients with sickle cell disease, a population too often undertreated and overlooked. When I help my patients navigate barriers to care, I know that securing their coverage matters and that it's also only the beginning of getting them care.
Patient safety and care team integrity: Physician-led, team-based care with appropriate training, accountability and transparency for every team member in every state. As a member of the Scope of Practice Partnership Steering Committee, I keep this work grounded in safety and outcomes, not politics or turf battles.
A sustainable physician workforce: Retention, distribution, and training—not headcount. As a palliative medicine fellowship director and clinical professor, I train physicians for a field with critical shortages and watch the friction firsthand: administrative burden, payment instability, and practice conditions that push physicians out of the communities that need them. I will continue to prioritize solutions that stabilize rural hospitals and practices, expand training capacity, and fix the conditions that drive physicians out of medicine.
Public trust through evidence-based prevention: The AMA must lead with credibility and courage, or it leads nowhere. My work in vaccines and firearm injury prevention reflects a straightforward approach: protect patients, support physicians, stay anchored in data. I work across differences because the outcomes matter more than the politics.
Physician-led innovation with guardrails: AI and digital health are moving fast. I build and evaluate these tools. My academic work sits at the intersection of digital health, AI, and equity—including research using wearables and patient-reported outcomes in populations that technology typically ignores. I know the difference between a tool that demos well and one that works in clinical practice without increasing burden, bias or risk. The AMA must ensure that physicians design the future instead of inheriting someone else's version of it.
I lead with service & perspective
I’m on the ward this week. And the board.
I am a full-time practicing physician and clinical professor. I care for medically complex children and adults with serious illness in hospitals, clinics and homes. I’m also a newborn hospitalist in the community setting. My dual training in adult and pediatric palliative medicine means I work across disciplines, life stages and care settings. This perspective shapes every policy decision I make. I direct the UC San Diego–Scripps Health palliative medicine fellowship and practice at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego and UC San Diego Health. I am a researcher who works where digital health meets health equity. My work with PowerMom, a mobile research platform, uses real-time data to expand participation in clinical research among populations that have been excluded from it. This is applied innovation: technology designed to close gaps, not widen them.
I have led at every level. I am a past president of the San Diego County Medical Society. I serve as chair-elect of the AMA Board of Trustees, completing a term as the Young Physician Trustee. I have held leadership roles in the AMA, the California Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. As a Black woman physician, first-generation immigrant, and mother of three, I do not theorize about the challenges physicians face; I live them. I have navigated academic medicine, community practice, and policy—and I bring all three to my leadership. Raising my family in San Diego, with my roots in Kansas, reminds me every day who I am showing up for at the bedside and in the board room.
The why behind my work
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.
