Dr. John Murphy, 25 Over Fifty-five

TOP OF HIS GAME: Dr. John Murphy is not only in charge of physician affairs at Lifespan Corp., he’s also a professor at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
 / PBN PHOTO/DAVE HANSEN
TOP OF HIS GAME: Dr. John Murphy is not only in charge of physician affairs at Lifespan Corp., he’s also a professor at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
 / PBN PHOTO/DAVE HANSEN

25 Over Fifty-Five 2019 Award Winner
DR. JOHN MURPHY | Executive vice president of physician affairs, Lifespan Corp.; Professor of medicine and family medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University


DR. JOHN MURPHY HAS always been a leader.

He has held leadership positions since shortly after he graduated from medical school, beginning with chief resident. In his 36 years in health care, he has held several chief positions and directorships at Memorial Hospital, Rhode Island Hospital and Lifespan Corp., and he has been president of the American Geriatrics Society. He’s currently the executive vice president of physician affairs at Lifespan, a four-hospital system with a $2.2 billion operating budget.

His secret to effective leadership isn’t complicated. “I listen,” Murphy said. “It’s not about me; it’s about the people we serve, the patients and families we care for, and our employees.”

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Murphy supervises the hospitals’ medical staffs, as well as quality and safety; medical education; key service lines such as cancer, cardiac, diagnostic imaging, pathology and pharmacy; and Lifespan’s $85 million-a-year research program, among other duties. Of Lifespan’s 15,000 employees, ­Murphy oversees 2,800 of them.

Murphy has always made time for teaching. He’s a professor of medicine and family medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School, though most of his classes these days involve health care finance and the politics of funding health care.

“I love interacting with young minds,” Murphy said. “It keeps me young.”

He has also taught in Shanghai, China, and Germany, and he has helped develop postgraduate primary care training programs in China, Jordan and Russia.

Murphy said his ultimate goal is to provide quality care at the lowest possible cost to Rhode Island residents, but he has another dream, too: a merger of Lifespan, Care New England Health System and Brown to form a single academic medical system in the state. Merger talks recently broke down, but Murphy won’t say it’ll never happen. “I never say never,” he said.

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