NJ Neurosurgeon Named AMA President

Peter W. Carmel, MD, a pediatric neurosurgeon practicing in Newark, NJ, was inaugurated Tuesday as the 166th president of the American Medical Association – the first neurosurgeon to be elected president of the nation’s oldest largest physicians’ organization.

"My heroes have always been doctors," Carmel said in his inaugural address before colleagues at the AMA’s annual meeting in Chicago. "I can’t recall a day in my life when I did not admire doctors, did not want to be a doctor, nor doubted I would one day become a doctor."

Carmel said the AMA would continue to support physicians and fight for improvements in health reform as it continues to evolve. 

"The AMA is the trusted advisor that America’s physicians need to help them navigate health reform and the overwhelming changes occurring in medicine," Carmel said. "Physicians can count on the AMA to use the powerful voice of our profession to help Congress get health reform right."

Carmel has served on the AMA Board of Trustees since 2002 and on the Council on Long Range Planning and Development. He chaired the advisory committee from 2006 to 2007. Carmel is a former president of the AMA Foundation and is on the Foundation Board, an AMA media release said.

He has served in both the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. For 17 years, Carmel was a CNS representative in the House of Delegates, the AMA’s primary policy-making body.

The former chairman of the National Coalition for Research in Neurological Disease and Stroke, Carmel was subsequently chair of the National Foundation for Brain Research. He helped launch the Decade of the Brain initiative that raised millions of dollars in research money for neurological diseases and stroke.

Born in Brooklyn, NY, Carmel completed his medical training at the New York University School of Medicine and was research associate at the National Institutes of Health. He completed his residency in neurosurgery at the Neurological Institute of New York and obtained his doctorate in neuroanatomy from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Carmel was on the faculty at P&S for 27 years and was the founding chief of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery and a professor of neurological surgery. 

In 1994 Carmel moved to the New Jersey Medical School, where he is now chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery and co-medical director of the Neurological Institute of New Jersey.  He operates at the University Hospital in Newark, NJ and is the second physician from New Jersey to hold the office of AMA president.

Carmel’s wife, Jacqueline Bello, MD, is a neuroradiologist. The couple lives in Manhattan, NY, the AMA said.