
Azita G. Hamedani, MD, MPH, MBA, tenured professor and founding chair of the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine, is departing the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (UW) and UW Health to assume a senior leadership role at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill.
As President of Faculty Physicians, UNC Health, and Vice Dean for Clinical Affairs, UNC School of Medicine, Hamedani will lead strategy, growth, operations and quality for faculty physicians and providers of the school while working closely with the president of UNC Hospitals. She will begin her new role in March.
The transition reflects Hamedani’s passion for academic medicine, clinical excellence, and health care strategy and innovation, which have been hallmarks of her career. Known for her transformative leadership, Hamedani is adept at developing people and programs in her continual pursuit of optimal organizational performance and culture.
“I am truly honored by this tremendous opportunity. UNC Health’s mission to improve the health and well-being of North Carolinians and their vision to be a leading public academic health care system strongly resonates with me,” she said.
Hamedani’s departure marks the end of an extraordinary 18-year tenure at UW–Madison, during which she built the organization’s emergency medicine enterprise from a small community service to a nationally recognized model of academic emergency medicine, with thriving clinical, education and research missions.
She served as chief of the Division of Emergency Medicine within the Department of Medicine starting in 2009, establishing an emergency medicine residency program at the institution. With support from Robert N. Golden, MD, dean of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Hamedani founded the Department of Emergency Medicine in 2014. A large philanthropic gift from Jim Berbee, MD, MS, MBA (PG ‘14), and Karen Walsh significantly accelerated the new department’s clinical and academic growth.
Under Hamedani’s tenure, emergency services at UW Health more than doubled in clinical volume and footprint. New clinical sites, including a dedicated pediatric emergency department (ED), a new community ED on Madison’s east side, expansion to the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, and two Med Flight satellite bases, broadened access to high-quality emergency and trauma care throughout the upper Midwest.
Hamedani also marshaled unprecedented growth in the department’s education programs for medical students, residents and fellows, and her commitment to advancing research in emergency medicine led the successful recruitment of Manish N. Shah, MD, MPH, as the department’s first Vice Chair of Research. Under their leadership, the department rose to the top 10 in National Institutes of Health funding, with groundbreaking clinical and translational research programs in geriatric emergency medicine, dementia, infectious diseases, informatics and more.
If you ask Hamedani what she is most proud of, she will credit the talented people who joined her on the journey to establishing and growing the department. Having prioritized mentoring faculty, many of Hamedani’s faculty recruits have risen to key institutional leadership roles or extended their influence in emergency medicine policy, advocacy and practice nationally and abroad.
After Hamedani stepped down as department chair, the distinguished chair endowment was renamed The Azita G. Hamedani Distinguished Chair of Emergency Medicine, to honor her profound impact. Shah, who succeeded Hamedani as chair in 2022, currently holds this endowed chair. At the same time, Hamedani was the inaugural recipient of the Wisconsin Endowed Chair of Leadership in Emergency Medicine and has served as a senior advisor in both the medical school and the health system, with areas of focus including integration of clinical efforts, information services and innovation.
“Dr. Hamedani had an incredible impact across all of our missions: clinical services, education, and research,” Dean Golden said. “We thank her for her truly outstanding leadership and collegiality and wish her the very best in her exciting new leadership role.”
Reflecting on her time at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Hamedani expressed deep appreciation for the opportunity: “I am grateful for the opportunity to have built and led a department filled with incredible people. The UW, and the lifelong connections I have made here, will always be a part of my history,” she said.