James Hudspeth, MD, FACP
James Hudspeth, MD, FACP joined the Section of General Internal Medicine (GIM) in 2011. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine and the Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs for the Department of Medicine, supporting the work of almost 600 physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and nutritionists across the department. Clinically, he has been a career hospitalist who also works in GIM urgent care.
Dr. Hudspeth has a career focused on health equity across a range of settings, with an initial concentration on medical education and global health, fueled by a Fogarty Fellowship during medical school. He worked for eight years in partnership with Haitian hospitals, hoping to develop nursing and physician education by training educators. He continues to work in the sphere of global health and education of health providers in equitable partnerships, including advocacy for improved access to clinical training for international physicians and US institutions.
At Boston Medical Center, Dr. Hudspeth has held an array of administrative roles over the years, including Medical Director for the general internal medicine inpatient teams, Associate Program Director for the residency program, Associate Director for the Hospitalist Group, and his current role as Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs. Across these roles, he has focused on improving hospital operations to provide excellent care to patients and support to department staff and the hospital as a whole. These improvements have a particular focus on marginalized populations facing challenges during hospitalization, including patients with addiction, carceral history, or low English proficiency.
Dr. Hudspeth has organized grand rounds on topics of health equity and medical education, received multiple awards from the department and residency program for his educational work. He was the inaugural awardee of the BU Medical Group’s award for Clinical Excellence from among over 850 physicians within the organization, and the inaugural recipient for the nursing department’s Provider of the Year for the inpatient floors. During the peak years of COVID-19 pressure on BMC, he organized the Department of Medicine’s inpatient ward response. He oversaw the integration of physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants from a range of departments onto COVID-19 teams, at one point directing teams covering 70% of the floor beds at BMC. For this work, he received MVP Award from the Section of GIM in 2020.
Dr. Hudspeth has authored over 20 peer-reviewed articles, including a widely cited white paper on barriers for international physicians accessing short-term clinical education in the United States. He has held leadership positions in the consortium of universities for global health and the NGO EqualHealth, and was an associate editor at the HealthCare: The Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation.
Dr. Hudspeth earned his MD from Washington University in St. Louis in 2008, where he was Alpha Omega Alpha and received multiple awards for community engagement. He completed residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and moved to Boston Medical Center in 2011.