For this years 18th Annual Texas Conference on Health Disparities, we would like to welcome Dr. Benjamin Kligler, Executive Director of the Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Kligler is responsible for overseeing the work of the Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformations (OPCC&CT) advancing the Whole Health model throughout the VA system. He is a board-certified family physician who has been working as a clinician, educator, researcher and administrative leader in the field of complementary and integrative medicine for the past 25 years. In May 2016 he was named National Director of the Integrative Health Coordinating Center (IHCC) in the OPCC&CT. Dr. Kligler also served as Director of Education and Research for Whole Health at OPCC&CT. He is a Professor of Family and Community Medicine in Icahn Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and was the Vice Chair and Research Director of the Mount Sinai Beth Israel Department of Integrative Medicine. Dr. Kligler was the founding medical director of the Continuum Center for Health and Healing, a large integrative medicine practice which opened in May 2000. In addition, Dr. Kligler also held the position of Director of the Beth Israel Fellowship Program in Integrative Healthcare at Duke University.
Dr. Kligler is former Chair of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Health and Medicine, an organization of over 70 medical schools and health systems working to advance education, research, and clinical care in integrative medicine. He completed a five-year Academic Career Development Award for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH to expand his own research and the research program in the Beth Israel Department of Integrative Medicine. In addition, Dr. Kligler is Chair of BraveNet, a 19 center practice-based research network for integrative medicine, and is a co-principal investigator on a PCORI-funded clinical trial of acupuncture treatment for chronic pain delivered in a community-based approach to underserved populations in the Bronx. Dr. Kligler currently serves as a member of the Advisory Council for the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at NIH.
CAREER CHRONOLOGY:
2020 - Present Executive Director, Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation, Washington DC
2016 - 2020 National Director, Integrative Health Coordinating Center, Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation, Washington DC
2000-2016 Vice Chair, Director of Research and Education, Beth Israel Department of Integrative Medicine, New York, NY
1995 - 2000 Faculty, Beth Israel Residency Program in Urban Family Practice, New York, NY
EDUCATION:
1994 National Board Certification, Family Medicine
1991 Masters of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA
1990 Doctor of Medicine, Boston University, Boston, MA
1983 Bachelor of Arts, Harvard College, Cambridge, MA