Erika Werner

I'm a maternal-fetal medicine physician specializing in high-risk pregnancies and a diabetes researcher with about 25 years of experience in healthcare. When I was in medical school, I caught my first baby and couldn't imagine doing anything else. I've always been math and science oriented, but I also really enjoy people, so medicine was just a great way to combine my intellectual interests with helping people. I spent years delivering babies, reading ultrasounds, and taking care of pregnant patients with complications before transitioning to my current administrative role. One of my proudest achievements was when I was Maternal Fetal Medicine Division Director at Women and Infants, getting that team through COVID, particularly in the early days when we were delivering pretty much any pregnant person with COVID in the state of Rhode Island. We provided exceptional care in those early months when there was significant risk not just to the patients but to any staff, before we had all the PPE that we needed. Now, as chief physician executive for Tufts Medicine, a three-hospital health system in Boston spanning from Lowell to Boston, I oversee all of the physicians and many of the PAs and nurse practitioners across all specialties. My life is pretty much entirely administrative now, but I'm finding it really challenging in a wonderful way to think about how to support clinicians across an entire health system as we try to support patients during a time when healthcare is really complicated and the financial challenges are enormous.