Yale Radiologist Receives $100,000 Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship

Howard P. Forman, M.D., vice chair of finance and administration in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology at Yale School of Medicine, has been awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship.

He is one of six fellows chosen from around the country to participate in a one-year orientation and work experience program to help mid-career health professionals assume leadership roles in health policy and management. Started in 1973, the program is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and is conducted by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

“I look forward to being in Washington, D.C. for a year to learn more about the realities and challenges of health policy and to return to Yale and further this educational mission,” said Forman, a health service researcher specializing in health care labor markets.

Forman, a clinical radiologist practicing at Yale-New Haven Hospital, is also coordinator of Yale’s newly implemented MD/MBA joint degree program. In addition to his duties at the Yale School of Medicine, Forman holds appointments in the Department of Economics and the Yale School of Management. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in health care finance and health economics. He is researching the incentives that influence medical students in choosing a specialty.

“The program is a unique opportunity for students at Yale to learn about health economics, health care finance and health policy, and to incorporate this foundation in their future roles as health care leaders,” Forman said.

In the MD/MBA program, students pursue a rigorous management science curriculum, which helps to develop leadership skills and helps them gain an understanding of the motivation and mechanics at play in the current management of medicine. “Yale’s program combines the innovative Yale School of Management curriculum with the world renowned Yale system of medical education,” Forman said. “The medical students are exposed to physician and non-physician leaders in health care policy, finance, education and administration.”

As part of the Health Policy Fellowship program, which begins in September, Forman and other fellows will meet with key White House advisers to help formulate national health policy. They also will attend seminars on health economics, the congressional budget process, and federal decision-making. Fellows will use this experience later in the year to help develop legislative proposals, arrange hearings, brief legislators for committee sessions and floor debates, and participate with staff in House and Senate conferences.

Forman and other fellows will take part in all areas of the policy process, not as onlookers, but as full-time, working participants. They will also prepare a formal presentation on a policy-oriented research issue in which they have become involved. They will submit an evaluation report on the program at the end of the fellowship year.

Prior Yale recipients of this award include Myron Genel, M.D., associate dean of community and government affairs; Linda DeGutis, M.D., assistant professor of surgery, emergency medicine; and Sally Satel, M.D., lecturer in psychiatry and a noted author.