AAMC leaders to academic medicine: Our legacy endures

AAMC President and CEO David J. Skorton, MD, and AAMC Board Chair Michael Waldrum, MD, MSc, MBA, speak during the leadership plenary on Monday, Nov. 9, at Learn Serve Lead 2026.

Kaveh Sardari

For more than 150 years, academic medicine has been the birthplace of extraordinary scientific achievement, cutting-edge clinical care, innovative medical education, and meaningful community collaborations.

During the leadership plenary at Learn Serve Lead 2026: The AAMC Annual Meeting, AAMC President and CEO David J. Skorton, MD, and AAMC Board Chair Michael Waldrum, MD, MSc, MBA, reminded attendees of this long legacy, and offered lessons learned from their own careers as a blueprint for navigating the way forward.

"I've had the extraordinary privilege of spending my career around people who knew things I didn't know, saw things I couldn't see, and continually reminded me how much there is still to learn," Skorton told attendees during the plenary on Monday, Nov. 9, in Anaheim, California.

Learning from other people, and from the expertise they bring from a variety of disciplines, has served him well, and will serve the profession well in the future, said Skorton, who has announced his plans to retire in June 2027.

"Academic medicine brings disciplines and people together in service of something deeply human," Skorton added. "It is a place where science, service, and the human experience come together every day. I've had the privilege of helping to lead the AAMC, but I've never believed the AAMC - or any institution - belongs to its leader. It belongs to this community."

Waldrum, who is CEO of ECU Health and dean of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, similarly reminded colleagues of the tremendous accomplishments of the academic medicine community over the last 150 years. "As we celebrate, it is important that we acknowledge our responsibility to work together to build on those profound accomplishments" and to tell the stories of those achievements to students, faculty, and the general public.

Telling academic medicine's story

In 1980, as a premed English major, Michael Waldrum declared his intentions to become a doctor.

His father advised against it, arguing that all his physician friends "hated the practice of medicine." Waldrum even talked to some of them and heard the same: Medicine is "not what they thought it would be," and "not what it used to be."

Instead of being discouraged, though, Waldrum turned those statements on their head. Medicine is not what he thought it would be - but neither are most things in life, he mused. And medicine is not what it used to be - because it's always changing and advancing.

Over the years, Waldrum has heard those themes and stories repeated many times by students and other physicians. As an English major, though, he understood the power of storytelling to make sense of them.

"Telling a story is how we give meaning, structure, and significance to human experience," he said. "It's how we weave together the fabric of human connection."

During his time as a physician, those stories have included unprecedented advancements in treatments for heart disease and cancer, as well as declines in maternal and infant mortality. "These are awe-inspiring accomplishments driven by our values, commitment, professionalism, and passions."

And while not all stories are positive - it's important to tell and learn from the negative ones as well, he says - Waldrum urged his audience to amplify "the meaningful and great story of working in a profession that builds a better future for patients, students, organizations, communities, and ourselves."

He concluded, "Thankfully, [medicine] isn't what it used to be and it isn't even close to what I thought it would be. It is so much better!"

Guiding principles of an esteemed career

In his final leadership plenary, Skorton reflected on lessons learned from 45 years in medicine, higher education, the arts and sciences, and public service.

A physician and researcher who served as president of the University of Iowa and Cornell University and as Secretary of the Smithsonian before becoming AAMC president and CEO in 2019, Skorton never saw these endeavors are distinct.

"At their best, universities, museums, research institutions, and academic medicine are engaged in the same human endeavor," he said. "They help us discover. They help us understand. And they help us use what we learn in service of others."

He shared six guiding principles that have shaped his career: gratitude, curiosity, humility, humanity, trust, and possibility.

On gratitude: "When I look back over more than 45 years, what I feel most strongly is gratitude. … I am grateful for the patients and families who inspired me and taught me what this work means. I'm grateful for the students, faculty, artists, scientists, colleagues, and friends who challenged me and taught me. And I'm grateful to have had the extraordinary privilege of being part of this community."

On curiosity: "Curiosity keeps us moving. It makes us willing to question assumptions, challenge conventional wisdom, and look at a problem from another angle."

On humility: "Humility means having confidence in what you know while remaining honest about its limits. It means recognizing that the people around you will always have something important to teach you, especially those whose knowledge and experience differ from your own."

On humanity: "Science can help us understand disease, develop treatments, and extend life. The arts, humanities, and social sciences help us understand how illness is experienced, how suffering changes a person, and what it means to care for another human being. Medicine needs both. It needs the rigor to understand a condition and the humanity to understand the person living with it."

On trust: "We sometimes talk about trust as though it is something institutions and people are entitled to. It isn't. Trust is earned, usually slowly, sometimes painfully, and it is earned by our actions, not by what we say about ourselves."

On possibility: "Science and technology are indispensable. But progress also requires creativity, communication, collaboration, ethical judgment, empathy, and a willingness to listen to perspectives beyond and different from our own."

"If there is anything I would ask you to carry forward, it is this," Skorton continued. "Stay curious. Stay humble. Stay human. Keep working to earn trust. Keep reaching beyond the boundaries of your own discipline and experience.

"None of us, and no single person or discipline, holds every answer - or even most of the answers. But together, we can see more clearly, imagine more boldly, and accomplish more than any of us could alone."