The Honorable Dr. David J. Shulkin was the ninth Secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs in the Trump Administration and VA’s Under Secretary of Health in the Obama Administration. As such, Secretary Shulkin was the only member of the Cabinet to have served both Presidents and to have been confirmed by the US Senate by a vote of 100-0.
As Secretary, Dr. Shulkin represented the 21 million American veterans and was responsible for the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system with over 1,200 sites of care, serving over 9 million Veterans. VA is also the nation’s largest provider of graduate medical education and major contributor of medical research and provides veterans with disability payments, education through the GI bill, home loans, and runs a national cemetery system.
Secretary Shulkin is a widely respected healthcare executive having served as chief executive of leading hospitals and health systems including Beth Israel in New York City, Morristown Medical Center in Northern NJ, and currently advises leading health systems. Secretary Shulkin has held numerous physician leadership roles including the Chief Medical Officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University Hospital, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital. Secretary Shulkin has held academic positions including the Chairman of Medicine and Vice Dean at Drexel University School of Medicine. As an entrepreneur, he founded and served as the Chairman and CEO of DoctorQuality, one of the first consumer orientated sources of information for quality and safety in healthcare. Secretary Shulkin has served on boards of managed care companies, technology companies, and healthcare organizations. He now works with healthcare organizations that are leading the transformation of medicine around the world.
Secretary Shulkin is a board-certified internist. He received his medical degree from the Medical College of Pennsylvania, his internship at Yale University School of Medicine, and a residency and Fellowship in General Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Presbyterian Medical Center. He received advanced training in outcomes research and economics as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.
Over his career, Secretary Shulkin has been named “One Hundred Most Influential People in American Healthcare” by Modern Healthcare. He continues to advocate on behalf of the country’s veterans by serving on the board of numerous nonprofits that serve veterans, is the host of the popular Policy Vets Podcast, and is the author of the recent book, “It Shouldn’t Be This Hard to Serve Your Country: Our Broken Government and the Plight of Veterans.”
