Robert Wachter, MD
Robert M. Wachter, MD is Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is the author of 300 articles and 6 books. He coined the term “hospitalist” in 1996 and is often considered the “father” of the hospitalist field, the fastest-growing medical specialty in U.S. history. He is past president of the Society of Hospital Medicine, past chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine, a Master of the American College of Physicians, and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. In 2004, he received the John M. Eisenberg Award, the nation’s top honor in patient safety. Modern Healthcare magazine has ranked him as one of the 50 most influential physician-executives in the U.S. more than a dozen times; he was #1 on the list in 2015. His 2015 book, "The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age," was a New York Times science bestseller. His new book, "A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future," will be published in early 2026 by Portfolio, a Penguin-Random House imprint.