Dr. Humayun Chaudhry: A Public Health Policy Advocate

executive officer of the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) of the United States. The FSMB, which operates the Federation Credentialing Verification Service (FCVS) and cosponsors the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), was founded in 1912 and is the national not-for-profit organization for the 70 state medical boards of the United States and its territories. Dr. Chaudhry, 44, is married to Nazli Chaudhry, joint secretary of the Islamic Center of Long Island, and a board member of the Domestic Harmony Foundation. He previously served as the commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, the ninth largest health department in the United States, serving more than 1.5 million residents in an area encompassing 912 square miles. He also is a clinical associate professor of preventive medicine at Stony Brook University School of Medicine and an adjunct clinical associate professor of medicine at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine of New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). As Suffolk County’s health commissioner, Dr. Chaudhry worked closely with County Executive Steve Levy and directed a broad array of services providing high-quality, accessible health care to the county’s residents, overseeing 1,500 employees and a budget of $400 million. During his tenure as commissioner, Dr. Chaudhry created a new Division of Preventive Medicine to raise public awareness of preventable diseases and promote healthier lifestyles. When the H1N1 (swine) flu pandemic broke out in Suffolk County in April 2009, Dr. Chaudhry was praised for taking a proactive public health approach to the new virus, closing schools as needed and providing hundreds of local, state and federal health officials with daily public health guidance via advanced communication technologies using social media, including Twitter. New York’s Newsday commended Dr. Chaudhry for “intently but calmly... (steering) the public on a better middle course between apathy and alarm.” At the New York College of O s t e o p a t h i c Medicine at NYIT, Dr. Chaudhry served as chairman of the Department of Medicine from 2001-2007, and as assistant dean for preclinical education from 20032005, supervising all undergraduate medical education delivered to firstand secondyear medical students, and as the assistant dean for health policy from 2005-2007. Additionally, Dr. Chaudhry served as director of medical education at Long Beach Medical Center, a 202-bed community teaching hospital in Long Beach, N.Y., from 1996 to 2001 after his medical residency. From 1999 to 2007, Dr. Chaudhry served in the U.S. Air Force Reserves as a physician and medical educator, rising to the rank of major and serving as a flight surgeon with the 732nd Airlift Squadron and as the medical operations flight commander for the 514th Aeromedical Staging Squadron of the 514th Air Mobility Wing. Dr. Chaudhry is the principal author of Fundamentals of Clinical Medicine (4th edition, published in 2004), a textbook designed primarily for medical students. He has led, or participated in, clinical research in several areas of public health, preventive medicine, medical education, and infectious diseases, including studies on ways to improve vaccine utilization in acute care settings, the development of a multimedia online orientation for the fourth-year medicine clerkship, a comprehensive review of drug-induced aseptic meningitis, a review of streptococcal paratracheal abscesses, and a consensus statement on abdominal girth and carDr. Humayun Chaudhry: A Public Health Policy Advocate Profile