Nancy Dickey named interim head of Texas A&M’s Department of Humanities in Medicine

Trailblazing physician and health care executive Nancy W. Dickey, MD, has been named interim head of the Department of Humanities in Medicine at the Texas A&M University College of Medicine, effective Jan. 20, 2025. 

She currently serves as a professor in the Department of Humanities and in the Department of Primary Care and Population Health, and as an adjunct professor in the Texas A&M School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management.   

In this new role, Dickey will oversee the teaching, research and outreach efforts of the department, which has been part of the college since its founding in 1977. The department’s mission is to teach students how to provide holistic, patient-centered care for people in Texas and beyond, in part by instilling the arts, ethics, leadership and altruism—as well as the university’s core values—throughout the college’s educational programs. 

“We are thrilled that Dr. Dickey will help shepherd this important program through this transition period,” said Amy Waer, MD, FACS, MPSA ‘23, Jean and Tom McMullin Endowed Dean of the College of Medicine. “Her decades-long impact at the local, state and national level—and her current role as a professor in the department—will provide the department with deep insight and expertise.” 

Dickey’s long and prestigious career has been filled with firsts. In 1998, two years after becoming a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine (when the Health Science Center was under The Texas A&M University System), she became the first woman elected president of the American Medical Association. At age 48, she also was the youngest elected in the 20th century. As president, she focused on physician well-being and health care reform and access, which included development of the Patient Bill of Rights. 

In 2002, after a stint as interim dean of the College of Medicine, she became the first woman named president and vice-chancellor for health affairs at the Texas A&M Health Science Center, a position she held for 10 years. Under her leadership, the organization grew to five colleges with the addition of the College of Pharmacy and College of Nursing, added three campuses and more than doubled enrollment, from 880 students to more than 2,000. 

Among other awards and honors, she has received six honorary doctorate degrees in both science and law and was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2007 and to the Texas’s Women’s Hall of Fame in 2010.  

Dickey earned her bachelor’s degree from Stephen F. Austin State University and her medical degree from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. After completing her residency training in Family Medicine at the Houston Memorial Hospital System, she entered small-town private practice. During her years in practice, she was a rural health professor at the UT Medical School at Houston. She joined the A&M System medical faculty in 1996 as the founding director of the Texas A&M Family Medicine Residency.