About Terry Adirim, MD

For more than 25 years, I've worked inside the parts of health care most people never see. That's exactly why I can help your audience make sense of a system that too often feels impossible to navigate.

My career has lived at the intersection of front-line medicine, health policy, and health technology. I started as a pediatrician in the ER, caring for families on the hardest days of their lives. From there I rose to high levels in the federal government. As Chief Medical Officer for the U.S. Military Health System, I helped oversee care for nearly 10 million people across 49 hospitals and several hundred clinics, then led that system as Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. I went on to direct one of the largest health IT modernization efforts in the country at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Today I advise health tech startups, serve on national health care committees and task forces, and speak to audiences about how to take charge of their own care. My new book, The Prepared Patient: Your Guide to Surviving the Health Care System, is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Whether your audience is patients, clinicians, or the leaders shaping the future of medicine, I offer a rare view from every side of the system and a practical message they can put to use.