Christian Arbelaez Appointed Chief, Chair of Emergency Medicine

Christian Arbelaez, MD, MPH, has been named the Department of Emergency Medicine Chief at Boston Medical Center and Chair at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Arbelaez will join the BU/BMC community us July 15, 2021.

Currently Dr. Arbelaez is Vice Chair of Academic Affairs at Brown Emergency Medicine and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University with appointments at Rhode Island, Hasbro Children’s, and The Miriam & Newport hospitals.

Dr. Arbelaez completed his medical degree at University of Texas Medical Branch, an emergency medicine residency at Brown University/Rhode Island Hospital, and a minority health policy fellowship at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed the Hispanic Mid-Career Executive Leadership Fellowship from the NYU Wagner School of Public Service Leadership Center.

An innovative leader and global expert in emergency care delivery systems and public health, Dr. Arbelaez’s work has been focused on improving access to care and health outcomes of vulnerable populations over his 20-year academic career. His strong clinical leadership and track record of building teams will advance and further develop the mission of our academic medical center and our Emergency Department.

Thank you to Jon Olshaker, MD, who has served as Chief and Chair of the Emergency Medicine department for the past 19 years, who announced his plans last year to step down from his leadership role. Dr. Olshaker’s many lasting contributions to the Emergency Department, including attracting strong faculty who helped to establish programs and interventions have become national models for advocacy, research and teaching.

Thanks to David Greer, MD, MA, who led the search committee, as well as the committee members for their work that developed a very strong national candidate pool.