WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – After more than 32 years as an academic medicine leader, Dr. Julie A. Freischlag will retire at the end of 2025 as CEO and chief academic officer of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, chief academic officer and executive vice president of Advocate Health, and executive vice president of health affairs at Wake Forest University. She will also conclude her 38-year career as a practicing vascular surgeon.
Freischlag has led Wake Forest Baptist as CEO since May 2017 and served as dean of Wake Forest University School of Medicine from February 2018 to February 2023.
“There are few people in this country who have had such a profound and positive impact on individual patients, academic medicine as a field, and a national health system; Dr. Freischlag is one of those people. She has imbued Advocate Health with a commitment to academic excellence, groundbreaking research, compassionate care, and a belief in the next generation of clinicians,” said Eugene A. Woods, CEO of Advocate Health, of which Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist is part. “I will be forever grateful for her remarkable contributions and her counsel – and while I will still call upon her wisdom in the years ahead, I wish her a retirement filled with joy, family, and some well-deserved rest.”
Over the coming months, Freischlag will begin transitioning her academic duties to Dr. Ebony Boulware, dean of Wake Forest University School of Medicine and chief science officer of Advocate Health, and her clinical operational duties to Dr. David Zaas, president of Wake Forest Baptist.
“Leading Wake Forest Baptist has been the most fulfilling and rewarding role in my medical career,” Freischlag said. “I have been inspired and energized every day by the dedication of our teams to our patients and the communities we serve and am incredibly proud of our growing commitment as an academic learning health system to teach, train and discover.”
Prior to coming to Wake Forest Baptist, Freischlag was vice chancellor for human health sciences and dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine. For more than 15 years, she led education and training programs at top medical schools in her role as professor and chair of surgery and vascular surgery departments. Freischlag also has more than 30 years of experience leading patient care services as chief of surgery or vascular surgery at nationally ranked hospitals. She served as professor, chair of the surgery department and surgeon-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
A vascular surgeon, Freischlag specializes in the treatment of thoracic outlet syndrome, which can require a specialized surgical procedure. She has received numerous teaching and achievement awards, including the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Vascular Surgery, an achievement award from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Trailblazer Award from the Society of University Surgeons. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2015 and inducted into the Academy of Master Surgeon Educators in 2021.
"I cannot overstate the impact of Dr. Freischlag's career — as dean of Wake Forest University School of Medicine, as CEO of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, and across her career as a pioneering vascular surgeon," said Susan R. Wente, president of Wake Forest University. "Her work as a clinician, researcher, teacher and executive has saved countless lives, improved surgical techniques, increased clinical efficacy and paved the way for generations of physicians. The medical community — and our community here in Winston-Salem — is better, safer, and healthier thanks to her work.”
Freischlag has held numerous national leadership roles, including serving as the 2021-2022 president of the American College of Surgeons. She is the chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges board of directors, is a board member of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center Research Hospital and Aga Khan University board of trustees, and is chair of the Health Services Committee, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine board of visitors and the University of Illinois health advisory council. She was the first and only woman president of the Society for Vascular Surgery and the first woman president of the Association of VA Surgeons. Freischlag was also the editor of JAMA Surgery, an international peer-reviewed journal, for 10 years.
“Julie has been a trailblazer her entire life and her visionary leadership over the past eight years will leave a lasting legacy on our health system, our medical school and the communities we serve,” said Bill Warden, chair of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center board of directors. “She led us through an era of unprecedented growth and innovation, and now as part of Advocate Health, the nation’s third-largest nonprofit health system, Julie’s guidance has positioned us to have an even larger impact on shaping the future of health across our nation.”
Under Freischlag’s leadership over the past eight years, Wake Forest Baptist experienced incredible growth across the region – including the building of The Birth Center and adding High Point and Wilkes medical centers and numerous outpatient clinics – and combined with Atrium Health, and most recently, with Advocate Health.
“It’s against my nature to slow down, but this is the right time for me,” Freischlag said. “While I will greatly miss this organization, I look forward to spending more time with my family and my grandchildren, traveling and staying busy with the many hobbies I enjoy. Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist has a bright future ahead, and I can’t wait to see what the team accomplishes together.”
Media Contact:
Joe McCloskey, jmcclosk@wakehealth.edu