ACGME Approves New Board of Director Officers

Chicago, IL, Oct. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is pleased to announce that at its September 2026 annual meeting, the ACGME Board of Directors approved the following slate of officers.

Jessica Bienstock, MD, MPH is the new Chair of the ACGME Board. Dr. Bienstock assumes this role after serving as Vice Chair and Chair-Elect for one year. She will serve a two-year term.

Dr. Bienstock is a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Until 2025, she served as the senior associate dean for graduate medical education and the designated institutional official at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. At Johns Hopkins, she created the Offices of Graduate Medical Education and Graduate Clinical Education as central resources for all physician and allied health training programs. Prior to her role in the Dean’s office, she was the medical student clerkship director for the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Johns Hopkins, followed by residency program director of the obstetrics and gynecology program at Johns Hopkins for 16 years. For more than 25 years, Dr. Bienstock has taught medical students, residents, fellows, and faculty physicians in both the classroom and clinical settings.

Dr. Bienstock has served on the ACGME Board of Directors since 2017. She also served as Chair of the ACGME Review Committee for Obstetrics and Gynecology, and as Chair of the Council of Review Committee Chairs, a council of the ACGME Board. She also served on the ACGME Task Force on Physician Well-Being and on the Common Program Requirements Writing Group. Outside of the ACGME, she served on the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology, and for 17 years, as an oral board examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Dr. Bienstock received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Columbia University, her medical degree from State University of New York Downstate College of Medicine, and her master of public health degree from Johns Hopkins University. She completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology in the Mt. Sinai Health System, followed by a fellowship in maternal-fetal medicine at Johns Hopkins University.

Daniel L. Dent, MD, FACS is the Board’s new Vice Chair. He will serve a one-year term.

Dr. Dent chairs of the Department of Medical Education and is professor and vice chair for education in the Department of Surgery, and associate director for Workforce Development for the Mays Cancer Center at University of Texas (UT) San Antonio. His clinical practice is in trauma, critical care, and acute care surgery.

He joined the faculty at UT Health San Antonio in 1996 and has received numerous teaching excellence awards as voted by medical students and residents. He has mentored medical students and residents who have gone on to receive awards and recognition from national organizations. He served as surgery program director (2006-2021), was named a Distinguished Teaching Professor by the University of Texas System (2010) and received the UT Health San Antonio Presidential Award for Teaching Excellence (2016). Dr. Dent has published more than 100 manuscripts, including more than 30 related to medical education. Dr. Dent is a coauthor of the Clinician Educator Milestones and completed the ACGME's Developing Faculty Competencies in Assessment course, for which he now serves as a regional course director.

Dr. Dent is a past president of the Association of Program Directors in Surgery, past chair of the Organization of Program Director Associations, and past chair of the General Surgery Board of the American Board of Surgery.

Dr. Dent completed a bachelor's degree in psychology at Duke University and his medical degree from the University of South Florida. He completed his residency and a year of research in trauma and nutrition support at the University of Tennessee in Memphis.

Jeffrey P. Gold, MD is the Board’s new treasurer. He will serve a one-year term.

Dr. Gold is President of the University of Nebraska System, leading a four-campus university system that enrolls nearly 50,000 students and employs 16,000 faculty and staff members.

He is a nationally recognized higher education and health care leader and advocate and was the chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and board chair for the Nebraska Medicine Health System from 2014 to 2024.  He also previously served as Chair of the ACGME Board from 2018 to 2020.

Dr. Gold holds tenured faculty appointments in UNMC’s College of Medicine and in the College of Public Health, where his research interests in health care policy, population health, and epidemiology are concentrated. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 350 national presentations, and 40 books and chapters, and engaged in over 300 invited professorships and keynote presentations.

Dr. Gold is a first-generation college student; he graduated from the Cornell University College of Engineering with a bachelor’s degree in theoretical and applied mechanics. He earned his medical degree from the Weill Cornell College of Medicine, and his general surgery residency at The New York–Presbyterian Hospital and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He completed his cardiothoracic surgical fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, with additional training in pediatric cardiac surgery at the Boston Children’s Hospital, both part of the Harvard Medical School.

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ABOUT THE ACGME

The ACGME is a private, non-profit, professional organization responsible for the accreditation of more than 13,700 residency and fellowship programs and the more than 900 institutions that sponsor these programs in the US. Residency and fellowship programs educate approximately 167,100 resident and fellow physicians in 146 accredited specialties and subspecialties. The Mission of the ACGME is to improve health care and population health by assessing and enhancing the quality of resident and fellow physicians' education through advancements in accreditation and education.