Cleveland Clinic Names Raed Dweik, M.D., Chair of its Respiratory Institute

Cleveland Clinic announced the appointment of Raed Dweik, M.D., MBA, as chair of its Respiratory Institute.

In this role, Dr. Dweik will oversee more than 650 employees, including 170 staff physicians, in Cleveland Clinic’s Respiratory Institute, which is comprised of the departments of Pulmonary Medicine, Allergy and Immunology, Critical Care Medicine and Infectious Disease. Dr. Dweik has served as interim chair since March 2018 when Herbert Wiedemann, M.D., was appointed Chief of Staff after leading the institute for more than 10 years.

Dr. Dweik has held several key leadership positions since joining Cleveland Clinic’s staff in 1996, including chairing the Innovation Management and Conflict of Interest office for the past four years. He also chairs the Capital Advisory Team and Capital Review Committee for the health system. He served as a member of the Board of Governors from 2011 to 2015, as well as the Board of Trustees and Board of Directors from 2013 to 2015.

Dr. Dweik’s clinical interests include pulmonary disease, pulmonary hypertension, asthma, chronic beryllium disease and critical care. He has been the director of the Pulmonary Vascular Program since 2005 and is credited with transforming the clinical group from just two members to one of the largest programs in the country, with an internationally recognized team of clinicians, educators, and researchers.

“Dr. Dweik is internationally recognized for his research accomplishments and innovation. He has passion and has had outstanding success in mentoring early career physician scientists,” said Herbert Wiedemann, M.D., Cleveland Clinic’s Chief of Staff. “In addition, Dr. Dweik is an exceptional clinician and educator. I am confident the RI will thrive under his leadership.”

Dr. Dweik is also professor of medicine in the Lerner College of Medicine and has a joint appointment in the Lerner Research Institute with continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2002. He established a Research Center of Excellence in Pulmonary Vascular Disease including a patient registry, a human sample biorepository and an animal model core. He was the recipient of the Cleveland Clinic Outstanding Innovation in Translational Medicine Award and a Third Frontier Award from the state of Ohio for his pioneering work in exhaled breath analysis in lung and systemic disease. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters and serves on several journal editorial boards, NIH review panels and American Thoracic Society, American Heart Association and Association of American Medical Colleges committees.

“It’s a great privilege to be given the opportunity to lead such a distinguished group of physicians and caregivers,” Dr. Dweik said. “The Respiratory Institute sees patients with a wide spectrum of conditions, and what brings us together is our shared mission of providing exceptional, compassionate, and multi-disciplinary care to our patients, while advancing medicine through research and innovation.”

Dr. Dweik is the recipient of several teaching awards including the Cleveland Clinic Distinguished Teacher Award from the Internal Medicine Residency Program five times, the Teacher of the Year Award from the Pulmonary Fellowship Program and the Scholarship in Teaching Award from Case Western Reserve University. He is the director of the KL2 program of the Cleveland Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative, a member of the admissions committee at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, and past chair of the Committee on Advancement, Promotion and Tenure at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Dr. Dweik earned his medical degree from the University of Jordan in Amman before traveling to Ohio for internal medicine residency training at Wright State University. He then completed a fellowship in pulmonary and critical medicine at Cleveland Clinic before joining the staff. He earned an MBA from Case Western Reserve University in 2017

Cleveland Clinic’s Respiratory Institute treats more than 200,000 patients annually in outpatient clinics and also includes inpatient hospital floors and intensive care units. Its physicians see patients in more than 25 locations. The Respiratory Institute’s pulmonary program is ranked No. 3 ranking in U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Hospitals 2018-2019.”