Brashear Elected to AAMC Council of Deans Board

By Ellen Goldbaum

Brashear is one of just 14 medical school deans currently serving on the board. She will serve a one-year term.

“This appointment is a clear recognition of Dr. Brashear’s visionary leadership in academic medicine,” said A. Scott Weber, PhD, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “Her election to the AAMC Council of Deans Administrative Board will advance medical education and research at UB and throughout the country.”

“Being elected to the administrative board of the AAMC Council of Deans is a tremendous honor,” said Brashear. “In this leadership role, I will have the opportunity to help shape the AAMC’s strategies that drive innovation, produce clinical excellence, advance research, strengthen our health care workforce, support our students, and address disparities in academic medicine.”  

The Council of Deans is the only organization of its kind, convening deans of AAMC member medical schools in the U.S. and Canada to address issues affecting academic medicine and develop strategies to achieve excellence in medical education, research and patient care.

The AAMC is a nonprofit association dedicated to transforming health through medical education, health care, medical research, and community collaborations.

The Council of Deans Administrative Board provides a venue for deans to address the concerns of their constituencies: medical students, graduate students in life sciences; physicians-in-training; physicians and scientists on medical school faculties.

It gives medical school deans throughout the nation the opportunity to develop consensus among their broad and varied perspectives, to assist other deans in fulfilling their missions and to advocate their views within and through the AAMC.

The board also provides for the mentoring and professional development of deans.

Brashear is an internationally renowned neurologist and researcher whose work has fundamentally transformed the way spasticity and dystonia are treated.

During her 30-year career, she has led over 40 clinical trials aimed at developing potential treatments for spasticity after stroke and cervical dystonia, or abnormal, involuntary movements of the neck. Her work led to approval of three forms of botulinum toxin to treat patients with disabling muscle spasms.

A powerful advocate for promoting diverse leaders in medicine, Brashear was instrumental in creating one of the first national leadership programs in neurology for women. She is a frequent lecturer on the importance of diversity in medicine, and a lifelong champion of advancing women’s leadership in medicine.

She was named an AAMC Council of Deans Fellow for 2014-15; the Fellowship is a professional development program created to enhance the development of future leaders in academic medicine.

Brashear serves on the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the McKnight Brain Research Foundation, and has been a member of the board of the American Academy of Neurology, as well as the American Neurological Association.

She completed the Harvard School of Public Health Leadership program for physicians, as well as a national program for women leaders in academic medicine, Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM).

Brashear graduated from the Indiana University School of Medicine, where she completed her residency in neurology and later became a professor of neurology. She holds an MBA from Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, with a focus on health-sector management.