Mary E. Klingensmith

Dr. Klingensmith joined the ACGME in September 2021 as the Senior Vice President, Accreditation. She is the Mary Culver Distinguished Professor emeritus and former Vice-Chair for Education in Surgery at Washington University in Saint Louis. Dr. Klingensmith was Residency Training Program Director in General Surgery at Washington University from 2001-2012, served as the Associate Director for the Simulation Center, and was a Loeb Teaching Fellow at the School of Medicine. She was the founding director of the medical school’s Academy of Educators.

Dr. Klingensmith is board certified in surgery and practiced general surgery at the John Cochran VA Hospital and Barnes Jewish Hospital in Saint Louis. Her research interests are in surgical education, including curricular reform, competency-based education, simulation curricula, surgical ethics, and the impact of regulations on student, resident, and faculty perceptions of the field of surgery. Dr. Klingensmith served as a director for the American Board of Surgery (including as its Chair in 2017-2018) and of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Additionally, she served in an employed position as Vice President of the American Board of Surgery (ABS), where she directed the board’s competency-based education/entrustable professional activities (EPA) project and for 12 years led SCORE (Surgical Council on Resident Education), a unified curriculum for training in surgery, which is delivered via a web portal.