Seattle Anesthesiologist Inaugurated as 2024-2025 President of Washington State Medical Association

Dr. John Bramhall will lead the nearly 13,000 physician, physician assistant, and medical student members of the association for the next year.

SEATTLE, WA, UNITED STATES, October 1, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Seattle anesthesiologist John Bramhall, MD, PhD, was inaugurated as president of the Washington State Medical Association at its annual House of Delegates meeting on Saturday, Sept. 28 at the Historic Davenport in Spokane. The WSMA represents nearly 13,000 physicians, resident physicians, physician assistants, and medical students throughout Washington state.

After 30 years working at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Dr. Bramhall recently stepped away from his position as associate medical director at the level-one trauma center to serve as WSMA president. He maintains an academic position at the University of Washington School of Medicine, also in Seattle, as a clinical professor emeritus in the department of anesthesiology.

Dr. Bramhall received a diploma from John Dalton College, in Manchester, U.K. in 1971, followed by a PhD in biochemistry at Aston University in Birmingham in 1976. A Fulbright Scholarship brought him to the United States, where he studied immunology-oriented sciences first at the Molecular Biology Institute of the University of California, Los Angeles, then as a research fellow at the Neurobiology Institute at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California. A passion for immunology and its impact on disease states led him to medical school at the University of California San Diego, where he graduated in 1991, after developing a fascination for the study of anesthesia, including scholarly interest in the many interventions common to anesthesiology practice.

Pivoting from academic to practical medicine, Dr. Bramhall chose an anesthesia residency at Virginia Mason in Seattle and then stayed in Seattle for his subsequent career as a clinician, professor, and medical director with UW Medicine at Harborview. Though he recently stepped back from his administrative positions at Harborview, he maintains an ad hoc practice in the ORs of the trauma center as needed and continues with his academic appointments at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Dr. Bramhall brings more than 30 years of experience to his tenure as the medical association president, including a wide variety of front-line clinical roles and extensive administrative responsibilities within a large medical system, as well as 25 years of experience in academic medicine. He is past president of the Washington State Society of Anesthesiologists, past delegate to the American Society of Anesthesiologists, past member of UW Academic Senate and multiple UW/Harborview committees, and a current member of Washington State Hospital Association board of directors, among other roles.

The following physicians were also elected as officers at the meeting: Bridget Bush, MD, FASA, Anacortes anesthesiologist; Matt Hollon, MD, MPH, MACP, Spokane internist, vice president; and Bindu Nayak, MD, Wenatchee endocrinologist, secretary-treasurer. The fifth officer of WSMA’s executive committee is Past President Nariman Heshmati, MD, MBA, FACOG, Mukilteo OB-GYN, who will serve as committee chair.

In addition to several WSMA members who were re-elected to the board of trustees, newly elected to the board for two-year terms were Avanti Bergquist, MD, Bellevue psychiatrist; Stephanie Hansen, DO, Toppenish internist; Trace Julsen, MD, Spokane family physician; Vivienne Meljen, MD, Vancouver OB-GYN; and Alan Melnick, MD, Vancouver preventive medicine physician. Dr. Meljen was also elected to serve as an American Medical Association alternate delegate for a two-year term. Anukrati Shukla, MD, Monroe internist, was elected to serve as young physician trustee and Jacob Leary, MD, Seattle internist, was elected to serve as resident trustee, both for one-year terms.

Visit the WSMA website for a full roster of WSMA board of trustees members.

About the Washington State Medical Association

The Washington State Medical Association represents nearly 13,000 physicians, resident physicians, physician assistants, and medical students across all specialties and practice types in Washington state. The WSMA has advocated on behalf of the house of medicine for more than 125 years. Our vision is to make Washington state the best place to practice medicine and receive care.

Graham Short
Washington State Medical Association
+1 2069563633
gfs@wsma.org