Ricardo Azziz is a Uruguayan-American higher education and biomedical executive administrator and researcher who serves as Principal of SPH Consulting Group. He also serves as Executive Director of the non-profit Foundation for Research and Education Excellence and Director of the Center for Higher Education Mergers and Acquisitions at the Foundation.
In addition to his medical degree, Azziz obtained master's degrees in Public Health and Business Administration. He served as president of Georgia Regents University (now Augusta University) in the U.S. state of Georgia and was chief executive officer of its health system, Georgia Regents Medical Center (now Augusta University Medical Center). He had faculty and department chair positions at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and University of Alabama at Birmingham, and was in health and hospital administration at the State University of New York.
As of 2019, Azziz has authored more than 500 publications, with a research focus in biomedical sciences, specifically androgen excess disorders in women. He is a recognized expert in female reproductive disorders, particularly androgen excess and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
Early life and education
Azziz was born in Montevideo, Uruguay; his father was a nuclear physicist and his mother was an anthropologist, both Ph.D. holders. His family moved to the U.S. when he was two and his early years were spent mostly in Pittsburgh, with frequent "nomadic" excursions with his parents from Uruguay to Puerto Rico to Costa Rica, and back to Puerto Rico to begin his collegiate studies.
Azziz earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Puerto Rico in 1977, in biology and pre-medicine, graduating magna cum laude. He graduated in 1981 from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey. Following an internship and residency in obstetrics and gynecology (ob/gyn) at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., Azziz completed a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Between 1985 and 1987, he was an ob/gyn instructor at Johns Hopkins.
Azziz earned his M.P.H. in 1995 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), and his M.B.A. from there in 2000; he graduated with honors and was inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
Career
Alabama and Los Angeles: 1987–2010
From 1987 to 2002, Azziz taught at UAB where he served in several positions in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Azziz was Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CSMC) in Los Angeles, named the "Helping Hand of Los Angeles Chair". He served as director of the Center for Androgen Related Disorders at CSMC. At the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, he was a professor and vice chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Georgia: 2010–2015
In March 2010, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG) announced that Azziz would be named the eighth president of what was then called the Medical College of Georgia (MCG), USG's health sciences university. Stating that Azziz "stood out [in an] impressive pool of candidates," the Regents envisioned USG "expand[ing] its capacity to educate healthcare professionals to meet state needs". Then-governor of Georgia Sonny Perdue attended a July 10 signing ceremony as Azziz formally assumed the presidency at MCG and also became the CEO and chairman of a new entity, MCG Health Systems, Inc., which brought the university hospitals and clinics under the authority of Azziz via a joint operating agreement.
Azziz drew public scrutiny in August 2010 when he proposed changing the name of MCG to something with "university" in its name, in order to acknowledge that MCG included schools other than medicine. Azziz said that the medical school (Medical College of Georgia) would retain its name, but that the university would have a new name, encompassing all of the colleges (for example, dentistry and nursing). At a cost estimated at nearly US$3 million for the switchover, the new name would be Georgia Health Sciences University (GHSU).