Robert B. Doherty

Doherty is Senior Vice President of Governmental Affairs and Public Policy for the American College of Physicians (ACP), the largest physician specialty society and second largest medical organization in the United States. ACP represents 148,000 internal medicine physicians and medical student members. Mr. Doherty has more than 37 years of health policy experience and is an accomplished presenter at health conferences. From 1979 to 1998, Mr. Doherty worked in the governmental affairs department of the American Society of Internal Medicine, and with the merger of ASIM and ACP in June 1998, joined the ACP as Senior Vice President for Governmental Affairs and Public Policy. He has senior staff management responsibilities for ACP’s Division of Governmental Affairs and Public Policy, located in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Doherty has authored or co-authored many policy-related papers for the Annals of Internal Medicine, ACP’s flagship peer-reviewed journal. He also writes and hosts The ACP Advocate Blog, which won the 2009 Best Health Policy/Ethics Blog in an award program sponsored by Epocrates. The award announcement described his blog as “one of the more influential professional association blogs.” In 2010, Fierce Healthcare listed his blog as “one of the ten healthcare bloggers we’re thankful for.” He writes a monthly “Washington Perspectives” column in The ACP Internist and also serves as a guest blogger for the Philadelphia Inquirers’ Health Cents Blog.