Robert M. Wachter

Robert M. Wachter, born in 1957 in New York City, New York, is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He earned his B.A. in Political Science/Biology and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine at UCSF, he pursued a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program at Stanford University, focusing on Health Policy, Ethics, and Epidemiology. He joined the faculty at UCSF in 1990.

Wachter is widely acknowledged for coining the term “hospitalist” in a 1996 New England Journal of Medicine article, a concept that led to the creation of the fastest-growing medical specialty in U.S. history. His influence extends to patient safety, having received the John M. Eisenberg Award in 2004, the nation’s highest honor in that field. His expertise also encompasses health information technology, detailed in his 2015 New York Times science bestseller, “The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age.”

Throughout his career, Wachter has held significant leadership roles, including past president of the Society of Hospital Medicine and past chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and has been consistently recognized by Modern Healthcare magazine as one of the most influential physician-executives in the U.S., ranking #1 in 2015. His upcoming book, “A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future,” is set for publication in early 2026.