President-elect of American Medical Association and Holy Cross Alumnus to Reflect on Liberal Arts Education

Steven J. Stack, President-elect of the American Medical Association (AMA) and a member of the College of the Holy Cross class of 1994, will return to the College to give a talk  about the value of a liberal arts education.  The talk, which is free and open to the public,  will be held Tuesday, March 17 at 4:30 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center, Suite A.

The AMA is the nation’s largest and most influential physician organization. Following a year-long term as president-elect, Stack will assume the office of AMA president in June 2015. At that time he will be age 43 and the youngest AMA president in the last 160 years.

A classics major at Holy Cross, Stack says “In medicine, my classical liberal arts education illuminates the soul behind the science; it keeps me forever mindful that science exists in service to humanity and that care of the entire person is at the heart of the healing arts.”

In his talk, Stack will explore the modern day relevance of the classics major from the intimacy of the doctor-patient relationship to the vicissitudes of U.S. politics at the highest levels.

Elected to the AMA Board of Trustees in 2006, he was the first board-certified emergency physician to serve as an AMA board member. During the last eight years, Stack has served in many leadership positions, including AMA board chair and AMA secretary. Prior to his service on the AMA board, he held a distinguished record as an elected leader within numerous state, national and specialty medical associations.

Stack is nationally recognized for his special expertise in health information technology and served in the role of chair of the AMA’s Health Information Technology Advisory Group from 2007 to 2013. He has also served on multiple federal advisory groups for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), including the Information Exchange, PCAST Report, and Strategic Plan workgroups.

In his home state of Kentucky, Stack has served as medical director of the emergency departments at St. Joseph East in Lexington, Ky. and St. Joseph Mt. Sterling in rural eastern Kentucky. He also served as medical director of the emergency department at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Stack graduated magna cum laude and was a Henry Bean Scholar at Holy Cross. He returned to Ohio and completed his medical school education and emergency medicine training at the Ohio State University before moving to Memphis to begin his clinical practice. He currently resides in Lexington, Ky., and is a practicing emergency physician within his community and the surrounding areas of central Kentucky.