Md. Health Secretary To Join Johns Hopkins Public Health Faculty
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP/WZJ) -- Maryland's health secretary will be joining the full-time faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The school announced Wednesday that Dr. Joshua Sharfstein will be the new Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Training, effective Jan. 1.
"I look forward to joining a team of scholars that is making the world healthier, safer, and more sustainable," Sharfstein said in a release. "I will stay involved in my city of Baltimore and my state of Maryland, as I engage with national and global health policy challenges and help train future public health leaders."
Sharfstein was the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's principal deputy commissioner before returning to be Maryland's top health official in 2011. He served as Baltimore's health commissioner before the FDA in 2009.
A Maryland native, Sharfstein is a graduate of Harvard College and Medical School and is trained in pediatrics.
"As a pediatrician and as a public servant, Josh Sharfstein has been committed to children, families and improving people's lives," said Gov. Martin O'Malley in a release. "As the secretary of health and mental hygiene, he's led the way as we have invested in public health and prevention, aligned the health care system to the vision of better health at lower cost, and expanded health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of Marylanders. As a Marylander, I'm thrilled that he's going to Johns Hopkins."
During Sharfstein's tenure as health secretary, he led efforts to modernize Maryland's all-payer system for hospital payment. He also was health secretary during the state's badly flawed health care exchange website rollout last year. The state is working to revamp the website with technology from Connecticut in time for the next enrollment period in November.
(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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