To the YSM Community:

I am pleased to announce that Basmah Safdar, MD, FACEP, has accepted the position of director, Women’s Health Research at Yale (WHRY). Currently, Dr. Safdar is professor and vice chair of Faculty Affairs and Development in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and director of the Emergency Department (ED) Chest Pain Center at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH). From 2008 to 2013, Dr. Safdar also led the Women’s Heart Program at YNHH, a community engagement program committed to education and dissemination of science.

Dr. Safdar authored an early seminal paper that exposed a critical gap in the research on sex-specific differences in emergency medicine (EM) literature. This work culminated in an NIH-funded national research conference, which she directed, introducing the role of sex-specific research in EM and the co-creation of a national advocacy group. Dr. Safdar is also recognized for her work in identifying sex-specific phenotypes in cardiovascular emergency care and described the clinical phenotype of coronary microvascular dysfunction in ED patients. As a practicing clinician, she has used data to advocate nationally and internationally for the recognition of coronary microvascular dysfunction and myocardial infarction without obstructive coronary artery in routine clinical care–both are under-recognized forms of ischemia. As a clinical trialist and a team scientist, Dr. Safdar has led as PI or Co-I several large clinical trials investigating the role of microvascular dysfunction in the heart, brain, and sepsis. More recently, her research has focused on developing novel precision-medicine-based diagnostics for ischemia.

Through her work as a clinician and a researcher, Dr. Safdar has distinguished herself as an effective cross-pollinator, connecting disciplines, people, and ideas to build collaborative, team-based platforms that enable innovation and create impact. Driving growth for both clinical and research initiatives, she has strategically generated diverse federal and non-federal revenue streams and established synergistic alliances across institutional structures, disciplines, and specialties, from the basic sciences to clinical trials to large population-based epidemiological studies. She has also achieved success in applying the same interdisciplinary approach and scientific rigor for consensus building, mentorship, and national advocacy in her roles as the current vice chair and past president of the Academy for Women in Academic Emergency Medicine (AWAEM).

Dr. Safdar is the 2021 Impact Center Fellow of Women’s Executive Leadership Program (Washington, D.C.) and 2024 Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Fellow. She also received the Mid-Career Faculty Award and the Leadership Award from the AWAEM.

Dr. Safdar earned her medical degree from Aga Khan University (Pakistan), and completed her residency (and chief residency) in Emergency Medicine at YSM. She also holds a Master of Science in epidemiology from Harvard.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Carolyn Mazure, PhD, who founded WHRY in 1998 and led its development into a nationally recognized interdisciplinary center over a quarter century. I am also grateful to the initial search committee members and advisors, including Amy Justice, MD, PhD (chair); Clare Flannery, MD; Susan Kashaf, MD, MPH; Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, PhD; Darin Latimore, MD; Mark Saltzman, PhD; and Mary Tinetti, MD.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Safdar on her new role.

Sincerely,

Nancy J. Brown, MD
Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Medicine
C.N.H. Long Professor of Internal Medicine