E. Dale Abel, MD, PhD, chair and department executive officer, was selected as the 2020–21 president-elect of the Association of Professors of Medicine (APM) Council. As a part of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM), the APM works to aid professional development and research in internal medicine. For nearly 60 years, this organization of more than one hundred chairs of departments of medicine in the United States and Canada has worked to advance issues of importance to medical education and patient care. In 2021–22, Abel will lead this council as APM’s first president of color.

Members of the Department of Internal Medicine have taken visible roles with AAIM in the past though none have served as its president. Previous active APM-member chairs of the department include Mark Anderson, MD, PhD; Paul Rothman, MD; and François M. Abboud, MD. In 1993, Abboud was awarded the Robert H. Williams, MD, Distinguished Chair of Medicine Award, APM’s highest honor. From 2000–2003, Mark Wilson, MD, Director of Graduate Medical Education, served on the Association of Program Directors of Internal Medicine Council, one of four other councils within AAIM similar to APM.