Warren P. Newton, MD, MPH

Secretary-Treasurer

Dr. Warren Newton is the Secretary-Treasurer of the Board of Directors (BOD). Previously, Dr. Newton served on the ABMS BOD and on its Executive and Finance Committees. He served on a variety of ABMS strategic planning and other task forces and was Chair of the Improving Health and Health Care Task Force, and the Founding Chair of the Committee on Continuing Certification.

Dr. Newton currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) and the ABFM Foundation. During his tenure, ABFM launched longitudinal assessment, the ABFM National Journal Club, a new examination blueprint, and the Center for Professionalism and Value in Health Care. Additionally, ABFM expanded its performance improvement activities and conducted major revisions to its Professionalism Guidelines and lifelong learning activities. In recent years, he has led ABFM in a major residency redesign, the development of a broad research enterprise focusing on board certification, the spread of family medicine quality measures, and a national primary care registry. As a volunteer, Dr. Newton served on the ABFM Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

Dr. Newton served as the William B. Aycock Professor and Chair of Family Medicine (1999-2016), Chief Academic Officer (2008-2013), and Vice Dean and Director of the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers (2013-2018) at the University of North Carolina (UNC). He has led practice and educational transformation at the practice, region, and state level and in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education. He has served on the North Carolina State Health Plan BOD and as senior advisor to the North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services.

With more than 180 articles in peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Newton’s scholarship has focused on the organization and effectiveness of health care. He has been the principal investigator on grants totaling more than $50 million. In addition, he has won numerous awards at the local, state, and national level.

Dr. Newton served as President of the Association of Departments of Family Medicine, was the Founding Chair of the Council of Academic Family Medicine, and is currently on the planning committee of the National Academy of Medicine’s Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education.

Dr. Newton graduated from Yale University with a double major in biology and history and earned his medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School. After residency and chief residency in family medicine at UNC, he completed the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and earned a Master of Public Health at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. In 2012-13, he was selected as a Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Bishop Fellow, during which time he also completed the American Council of Education Fellows program. Dr. Newton is certified by ABFM in Family Medicine and is participating in continuing certification.