President and CEO
American Board of Family Medicine
Lexington, Kentucky
Dr. Newton has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) since 2019. He has been a personal physician for 33 years, and founded the first hospitalist program at UNC Hospitals. At UNC, Newton served as the William B. Aycock Professor and Chair of Family Medicine, School of Medicine Chief Academic Officer, and joined ABFM as Vice Dean and Director of North Carolina Area Health Education Centers (AHEC). He has led practice transformation initiatives at the practice, regional and statewide levels, including the North Carolina Improving Performance in Practice initiative in more than 1,400 primary care practices.
As an educator, Dr. Newton served as residency director in Family Medicine at UNC and co-led the I3 collaborative of 24 primary care residencies focused on clinical transformation in residency practices. He served as Vice Dean of Medical Education at UNC during which he led a Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) review, expanded the school, established satellite campuses, developed new curricula in professionalism and population health and expanded significantly the enrollment of underrepresented minorities. Over the last 3 years, the ABFM has led a national effort to redesign family medicine residency education as a part of a “major revision” of Family Medicine residency standards.
As Director of North Carolina AHEC he led a large statewide health professions educational network working with five medical schools, all nursing schools and many other health profession education programs. North Carolina AHEC’s major focus is health workforce education for rural and underserved communities. Under his leadership, AHEC won major grants to spread innovation in primary care, developed a statewide digital continuing education platform, increased community-based residency programs, helped develop statewide programs for community health workers and started novel statewide educational programs to provide health careers exposure for undergraduates, introduce continuing interprofessional education, and address opiates, burnout and social drivers of health.
Dr. Newton’s scholarship has focused on the organization and effectiveness of health care. He has authored more than 175 peer reviewed publications, with over 80 published with students and residents. He has been PI on grants totaling more than $50,000,000, and served on the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina State Health Plan, responsible for health care for approximately 700,000 state and county employees and retirees. In 2016, he served as Senior Policy Advisor to the North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services, helping to prepare the Medicaid 1115 innovation waiver, plan rural residency expansion and develop quality metrics for Medicaid.
He has served nationally as President of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine and was the Founding Chair of the Council of Academic Family Medicine. He served on the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and is on the planning committee of the National Academy of Medicine’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education. Dr. Newton was the founding Chair of the American Board of Medical Specialties Committee on Continuing Certification and serves on its Board of Directors.
Dr. Newton graduated from Yale University with a double major in biology and history, earning his medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School. After his residency and Chief Residency in Family Medicine at UNC, he completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and a received a Master in Public Health from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. He was selected as a Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Bishop Fellow, during which he also completed the American Council of Education Fellow’s program.
Dr. Newton is board certified by ABFM.
Disclosure information not submitted.
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
1:15 PM – 2:45 PM CT
Competency-Based Medical Education: Bridging the Gap Between Training and Certification
Thursday, September 21, 2023
8:30 AM – 9:30 AM CT