Deborah D. Ascheim, MD has spent more than 30 years working to enhance the quality of health and health care; she has served as a practicing cardiologist, director of a research institute, and as a chief medical officer in biotech. In each of her roles, and as a board member at PHR, Dr. Ascheim has advocated for advances in health care and for the safety and well-being of health professionals around the world.
Dr. Ascheim is president of D2A Ltd., providing independent strategic consulting to biotech, device companies, and academics. From 2015 to 2019, she was chief medical officer of Capricor, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of first-in-class therapeutics. She is a cardiologist, with a clinical subspecialty in heart failure, and had an extensive career in academic medicine as an NIH-funded clinical investigator before moving to the private sector. Her most recent academic appointment was professor of medicine (cardiology) and health policy in the Departments of Medicine/Cardiovascular Institute and of Health Evidence and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, where she also served as clinical director of research and director of the Clinical Research Unit at the International Center for Health Outcomes and Innovation Research (InCHOIR). Dr. Ascheim has been volunteering with PHR and providing medical evaluations for the PHR Asylum Network since 2005. She was elected to the PHR board of directors in 2008, served as board chair from 2013 to 2016, and is currently vice-chair of the board.
Dr. Ascheim holds a BA from Wellesley College, where she graduated cum laude. She received her MD from New York University Medical School, and completed her internship and residency in internal medicine, as well as her fellowship in cardiovascular diseases, at the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. She completed a post-graduate fellowship in heart failure at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and remained on as a member of the faculty and as an attending cardiologist in the Heart Failure Center at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Mailman School of Public Health from 1995 to 2008. In 2008, Dr. Ascheim joined the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and from 2015 to 2019, she was visiting professor of medicine in the Department of Medicine and Heart Institute at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been published in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Circulation, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Journal of Cardiac Failure, the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, and the Journal of Heart Lung Transplant.