New ABR Public Member Comes Prepared for Role

With more than 30 years in the healthcare industry, Christy Harris Lemak, PhD, was a well-qualified applicant to become the ABR’s new public member on its Board of Governors (BOG).

Add the fact that she has long been a proponent of board certification and has a clear understanding of the process, it’s easy to see why she was selected for the role.

“It’s been part of what I teach and how I’ve explained how healthcare works for my entire career,” she said. “It was fascinating to see how it all works.

Dr. Lemak replaces Toby Gordon, ScD, the ABR’s first public member. Dr. Gordon rotated off the BOG last year. The public member’s purpose is to bring a different perspective to the Board from that of a physician or physicist.

At her first Board meeting in February, Dr. Lemak was impressed by the collection of volunteers on hand, each of whom brings a beneficial perspective to the organization.

“Everyone in that room wants us to be excellent,” she said. “I interacted with the Board of Trustees (BOT) and the Board of Governors, and I think their commitment to the field, the profession, and their colleagues was impressive. This is a group of very dedicated and outstanding physicians and physicists. That makes me want to be a part of it.”

BOG and BOT members spend their first Board meetings learning more about the ABR. They don’t participate in voting until their second meeting, but Dr. Lemak said the week with her new colleagues was time well-spent.

“As an educator, I’m very familiar with valid, reliable items and standardized exams, but I had never seen the process in action,” she said. “I’m excited to see how I can contribute.”

Dr. Lemak is the executive vice president for research and learning at The Scottsdale Institute, where she develops insights to advance digitally enabled care delivery at leading U.S. health systems. She works to understand and drive executive leadership teams who can leverage artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies to improve outcomes and patient experience.

An avid AI user, she used the tool to get a better read on the ABR before she attended the spring meeting.

“I worked with one of my favorite AI bots (Claude) and asked it to pretend that it was an ABR board member and tell me the key issues and provide citations to articles I could read,” she said. “I think it surprised folks that I came in knowing some of the big issues, at least from the outside.”

Recently retired from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she’ll continue teaching a graduate-level course on leadership and ethics for AI and medicine, Dr. Lemak is shifting her sights to her work at The Scottsdale Institute.

“I focus on helping leaders understand, embrace, and use the best possible technology to achieve their mission of patient-centered, high-quality healthcare,” she said. “I’m doing leadership development and practice-focused research to try to get insights into the hands of people in a field that is moving so quickly.”

Dr. Lemak remains active on other boards, including Community Hospital Corporation, based in Plano, Texas, and the Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame. She believes working with those groups gives her a good perspective on her ABR duties.

“I need to be a collaborator and help make the right decisions,” she said. “I have a lot of experience with boards and with work like this.”

Just one meeting into her service as the public member, Dr. Lemak is already regarded as an important part of the team.

“Dr. Lemak brings deep experience in healthcare leadership, nonprofit leadership, and artificial intelligence to the ABR,” said Board President-elect John Kaufman, MD, MS. “The non-diplomate member of the ABR provides a critically important external perspective to our discussions and decision-making. Dr. Lemak has already made a difference, and we feel very lucky she decided to throw her lot in with us for a while.”