Don Combs

Brainstormer, Change agent, Connector, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Global soul, Idea generator, Policy maker, Social entrepreneur

C. Donald (Don) Combs, Ph.D. serves as Vice President and Dean, School of Health Professions at the Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS). His responsibilities include strategic planning, oversight of EVMS’ health professions programs and medical modeling and simulation activities, program development, governmental and community relations, and directing educational outreach programs. Dr. Combs holds faculty appointments as Professor of Health Professions and Professor of Family and Community Medicine and as Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Old Dominion University. From 1996 to 2002, he also served as a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He has long-standing research interests in health and human services management, emergency response, health services research, health professions regulation, organizational development, strategic planning, and medical modeling and simulation. These interests are reflected in his professional publications and conference presentations, many consultancies with federal, state and local agencies, non-profit services organizations and businesses, and $110 million in external funding. He currently serves on several regional, state, and national boards and task forces that address national and international health policy. Dr. Combs is active in the Association of Academic Health Centers (AHC) and in national policy discussions addressing health workforce planning, emergency medical response to WMD, applied information systems and medical modeling and simulation. In the international arena, Dr. Combs has worked with colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School to develop and implement the International Health Resource Management executive education program that served some 20 nations, including Moldova, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Nepal, Botswana and El Salvador. He holds degrees received with distinction from South Plains College, Texas Tech University and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. His most recent research presentations include 2020: Are We Preparing the Health Professionals That We Will Need?, a paper prepared for and published by the Association of Academic Health Centers and Startling Technologies Promise to Transform Medicine, a paper published in the British Medical Journal on December 26, 2006.

Exploring differences, looking for intersections, finding opportunities to work together to improve education and health care, nurturing friends and colleagues