UConn Health

April 22, 2024 | Chris DeFrancesco '94 (CLAS) - UConn Health

UConn Health’s Dr. Rebecca Andrews Takes on New National Role

Starts 1-year term as chair-elect of American College of Physicians board of regents

Dr. Rebecca Andrews speaking to another provider in a clinical setting

UConn Health's Dr. Rebecca Andrews is chair-elect of the American College of Physicians Board of Regents. Her term as chair starts April 2025. (Photo by Tina Encarnacion)

UConn Health’s Dr. Rebecca Andrews continues her national leadership roles with the American College of Physicians, now as chair-elect of its board of regents.

Representing internal medicine physicians, related subspecialists, and medical students, the ACP is the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the U.S.

Dr. Rebecca Andrews portrait in white coat
Dr. Rebecca Andrews, UConn Health primary care physician, is a professor of medicine in the UConn School of Medicine, the UConn Internal Medicine Residency Program’s associate program director, and its director of ambulatory education. (Photo by Tina Encarnacion)

“I am thrilled that I have been elected into the position of chair of the board of regents,” Andrews says. “This role guides development of organizational policy that is utilized to advocate for improvements, changes, and important issues that face our patients as well as internal medicine physicians across the country and the world.”

Andrews is a professor of medicine in the UConn School of Medicine and serves as the UConn Internal Medicine Residency Program’s associate program director as well as its director of ambulatory education. She is a primary care physician, director of primary care, and clinical lead for UConn Health’s Patient Centered Medical Home and Comprehensive Pain Center.

“The basis of every industrialized country with superb health outcomes and life expectancy is robust primary care,” Andrews says. “Given this is my area of passion and practice, I feel particularly positioned to be a voice for the American College of Physicians, who have been tireless in improving care quality, access and delivery for our patients with such initiatives as ‘patients before paperwork’ advocating for what we all want — the opportunity to provide excellent care for patients in a less burdensome system.”

The board of regents is the ACP’s main policy-making body. Andrews’ installation as chair-elect took place at the ACP’s annual meeting in Boston Saturday. She starts her term as board chair next year. In that capacity her responsibilities will include overseeing policy creation, presiding over committee meetings including the board’s executive committee, and maintaining fiduciary goals.

Group portrait of four women
Dr. Rebecca Andrews’ involvement with the America College of Physicians goes back to her time as a UConn medical student. At the time of this photo at the ACP’s 2022 annual meeting in Chicago, she was concluding her year as chair of the ACP board of governors. Dr. Elisa Choi (second from right) would succeed her in that role, Dr. Priya Radikrishnan (left) would hold it the year after, and Dr. Sue Bornstein (right) is one of Andrews’ predecessors in the role of chair of the board of regents. (Photo provided by Rebecca Andrews)

Andrews is a 2002 graduate of the UConn School of Medicine and a 2006 graduate of the internal medicine residency program that today she helps direct. Her connection with the ACP goes back more than 20 years, when she first became involved as a medical student. She later would join the ACP’s early physician council. In 2010, a year after she returned to UConn Health as faculty physician, she was elected a Fellow of the College (FACP), an honorary designation that recognizes ongoing individual service and contributions to practice of medicine. She since has served on several national committees and in several leadership roles on the ACP’s Connecticut chapter.

“Especially now, as life expectancy has decreased for Americans for the first time in decades, righting the direction of health care is especially important,” Andrews says.

Andrews joined the ACP’s board of regents two years ago following a four-year term as the governor of the Connecticut chapter and a one-year term chairing the ACP’s board of governors. The chair of the board of regents and the president are the ACP’s two highest-level officers. The chair may act on behalf of the president when the president is unavailable.

The American College of Physicians has more than 160,000 members — which include internal medicine physicians, related subspecialists, and medical students — representing nearly 150 countries.

Andrews also is a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, a community of more than 45,000 medical students, physicians, and other leaders who’ve been recognized for their compassionate care.