Linda Sarna, interim dean at the UCLA School of Nursing, has been elected as the first National Board Chair for the National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP).
“I am excited and committed to this interdisciplinary collaboration that is providing nurses and physicians the opportunity to work together to improve the health of all of our communities,” said Sarna. “My goal is to ensure that the scholars in our program are provided with the experience to emerge as leaders in health system transformation.”
One of the original founders of NCSP, Sarna was elected unanimously and will serve a three-year term. The board is charged with providing oversight to ensure that all NCSP sites recruit elite clinicians and provide high quality training consistent with the principles and goals of the program.
“The integration of nurse and physician scholars is essential for transforming health care and reshaping the forces that determine health,” said Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “As a nurse scientist, educator and strong advocate for public health, Linda Sarna is ideally suited to oversee this program as inaugural chair of the board, supported by the deans and leaders from the four sites as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs and experts in the field of interprofessional education. Her selection puts this exciting new program on the strong foundation critical for developing the next generation of leaders and change agents.”
The National Clinician Scholars Program, which takes its inspiration from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, was founded in 2015 through a collaboration among UCLA, Yale University, University of Michigan and University of Pennsylvania. The program’s goal is to cultivate health equity, eliminate health disparities, invent new models of care and achieve higher quality health care at lower cost by training nurse and physician researchers who work as leaders and collaborators embedded in communities, health care systems, government, foundations and think tanks in the U.S. and around the world. The first cohort of scholars begin the program on July 1.
