McGovern Welcomed as Yale Medicine CEO

Yale School of Medicine formally welcomed Margaret McGovern, MD, PhD, as deputy dean for clinical affairs and chief executive officer of Yale Medicine at a reception July 13 in the YSM Historical Library. McGovern began her new role as deputy dean and CEO of YSM’s clinical practice on July 1. Yale Medicine administrators, faculty, and staff joined with leaders of Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) System to welcome her.

The reception also was held to thank Babar Khokhar, MD, MBA, who has served as interim CEO for the past nine months. “It takes a special kind of person to be interim over a large clinical operation on very short notice, at pretty interesting times,” said Nancy J. Brown, MD, Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Medicine, noting that Khokhar took on the interim role in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Khokhar will continue to serve as chief ambulatory medical officer and chief clinical transformation officer for Yale Medicine.

McGovern is a pediatrician and geneticist who previously served as dean for clinical affairs at Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University and vice president of Stony Brook Medicine Health System clinical programs and strategy. Before assuming those roles in 2018, she was chair of Pediatrics and physician-in-chief at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. She led the development and planning of Stony Brook Children’s Hospital and markedly expanded its pediatric clinical research and education programs.

Brown said the dean of the School of Medicine at Stony Brook described McGovern as someone who is “smart as a whip, really hard working, and no nonsense, who has a great sense of humor.”

“We’re really glad that you’re here and look forward to many years of working together and realizing our full potential in partnership with the (YNHH) system,” Brown told McGovern.

“I am delighted to have joined Yale as part of Dean Brown’s leadership team,” McGovern said after the reception. “I am looking forward to working with the Yale Medicine administrative team and all the clinical leadership to further advance the clinical mission and support the clinical research and education programs within the school.”

During the reception, McGovern displayed her sense of humor with a story about how she won a science fair in first grade by building a terrarium. The judge said she won because she explained how the terrarium worked. “That’s a big lesson I have taken through my entire career,” McGovern said. “You have to be able to tell your story, and the story of the organization you’re working for, and the people who you’re trying to help be successful. And I’m going to tell your story because it’s a great one.”