Christian Arbelaez, MD, MPH, is the Chair in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center and BU School of Medicine. Before joining BMC, he was a physician leader at Brown Emergency Medicine and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. With more than 15 years of senior leadership experience, Dr. Arbelaez has a track record of mentoring and collaborating and built his academic career by helping to create academic programs and projects with multiple academic universities, and international organizations. Over the span of his 20-year professional career, his passion and “Ikigai” has been focused on vulnerable populations in the US and abroad through the development and expansion of programs, mentorship of junior colleagues, and Humanitarian assistance in the Navajo Nation, disaster relief efforts with Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake; and in a post-conflict Colombia with internally displaced communities and Venezuelan migrants.
Dr. Arbelaez received his MD from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He completed residency training at Brown Emergency Medicine. He earned an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. He has completed Executive Education from the Harvard Business School Brigham Physician Leadership program at Harvard Business School and the Hispanic Mid-Career Executive Leadership Fellowship from the NHMA/NYU Wagner School of Public Service Leadership Center.