Dr. Ala Stanford

Founder at Black Doctors Consortium, Center for Health Equity, and R.E.A.L. Concierge Medicine

Speaker

Ala Stanford, MD Founder, Black Doctors Consortium and Center for Health Equity Professor, University of Pennsylvania Former Regional Director, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Mid-Atlantic

ALA STANFORD, M.D., is a pediatric surgeon, founder of the Black Doctors Consortium and a national leader in health equity, a health care policy advisor and former regional director of the US Department of Health and Human Services of the mid-Atlantic appointed by President Biden. Dr. Stanford is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the School of Arts and Sciences with additional appointments in Perelman School of Medicine and Annenberg School for Communication. A practicing physician for over twenty years and founder of R.E.A.L. Concierge Medicine, Dr. Stanford is board-certified by the American Board of Surgery in both pediatric and adult general surgery. She is a medical and health correspondent for national media outlets. Dr. Stanford’s book, Take Care of Them Like My Own is part memoir and part manifesto for health equality and justice was released August 2024 (Simon and Schuster Publishing). It offers urgent lessons about the power of communities working together to take care of one another and the importance of fighting for a healthcare system that truly fulfills its promise to all Americans. Her book has been listed on the 2024 Springer Nature Great Books in Global Health and Number 1 on the Amazon Best Seller list in three categories: Medical Biography, Public Health and Racism and Discrimination. Take Care of Them Like My Own has been celebrated in local and national media to include NPR/Fresh Air with Terry Gross, ABC Nightly News with Linsey Davis, MSNBC with Ali Velshi and the TODAY Show with Sheinelle Jones. Notable reviews on the book jacket are from Actor Will Smith and Drew Weissman, MD, 2023 Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine for his discovery that enabled the biological technology used in the COVID 19 RNA vaccine. Dr. Stanford gained international recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic using the infrastructure of her pediatric surgery practice to create a grassroots organization focused on education, testing, contact tracing, and vaccination in communities lacking access to care and resources. She and her team provided dire care for hundreds of thousands, and countless others nationwide through her messaging. She subsequently opened a multidisciplinary ambulatory care center bearing her name, in a neighborhood in Philadelphia with one of the lowest life expectancies in the city. Dr. Stanford has received many awards and honors, including a Top 10 CNN Hero, one of Fortune Magazine’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” and one of Forbes’s Most Influential Women. She has also received the American College of Surgeons 2023 Domestic Surgical Volunteerism Award and the George H.W. Bush Points of Light Award. She was selected as 2024 Distinguished Alumni from The Pennsylvania State University, and the City of Philadelphia commissioned a street in her name. She lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia with her husband and children.