Alec Kimmelman, MD, PhD, is assuming his dual role as dean of NYU Grossman School of Medicine and CEO of NYU Langone Health amid widespread financial and operational pressures in healthcare — but with optimism grounded in the New York City-based system’s strong foundation, integrated structure, and continued potential for innovation.
Dr. Kimmelman, a physician-scientist and radiation oncologist, joined NYU Langone in 2016 and previously served as director of the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center. He officially succeeded Robert I. Grossman, MD, in September 2025. Dr. Grossman retired after 18 years at the helm, during which he oversaw NYU Langone’s transformation from a $2 billion regional hospital into one of the Northeast’s largest academic health systems, with $15.4 billion in revenue for the 12 months ended Aug. 31, 2025.
The system now includes seven inpatient locations, more than 320 ambulatory sites across the New York region and Florida, a robust research enterprise, and two tuition-free medical schools with accelerated three-year MD programs. In 2025, Vizient ranked NYU Langone’s Manhattan inpatient campuses No. 1 among 118 comprehensive academic medical centers — for the fourth year in a row — and its ambulatory practices No. 1 out of 66 participating networks nationwide.
It’s amid this strong footing that Dr. Kimmelman leads a new era at NYU Langone. He spoke with Becker’s about the legacy he hopes to build on — and how his background in cancer care and research will shape the road ahead.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: You’re stepping into this role at a pivotal moment for NYU Langone, following Dr. Grossman’s long and impactful tenure. What’s top of mind for you as you begin this transition?
Dr. Alec Kimmelman: We have an incredibly solid foundation to start from. So there’s a real opportunity to do things here that you probably couldn’t do in many other places. That’s one of the most exciting and motivating factors for me.
Plus, there’s a culture here that Dr. Grossman and former NYU Langone board chair Kenneth Langone created — a culture of excellence and exceptionalism — that allows you to do big and bold things. People aren’t just saying that; they’re excited to do big and bold things. That’s what I’m extraordinarily excited about.
Q: Your background as a researcher and leader of the Perlmutter Cancer Center gives you a unique perspective. How do you see that experience shaping how you lead across a system as broad and complex as NYU Langone?
AK: The cancer center directorship was really great preparation for this role. Our cancer service line extends across the system, so that was a key focus — making sure that every place you enter our system offers the same experience.
Technology has helped with that. We have a single instance of Epic, so wherever you go, the data is available. It’s also part of our culture — that we are one system. All our hospitals share the same tax ID number, so the data is aggregated when we’re looking at quality and safety. That’s important to us, and it’s something I learned a lot about in the cancer center. It became very important to me that patients coming to our practices in Long Island receive the same experience and quality of care as those coming to Manhattan — and that they also have access to the same things, like clinical trials and the latest technology.
That’s something I want to carry forward to all areas. As a researcher, my lab focused on pancreatic cancer, which is one of the more deadly diseases we see. We have an opportunity here — because of our integration and because of our structure, where the school and hospital are essentially the same — to let translational research flourish.
I’m also the dean and the CEO, which removes a lot of potential conflict. There’s no debate between the dean and the CEO about who’s going to pay for what.
So we can take things to the bedside faster than most other places. We did a lot of that in the cancer center, and I think there’s an opportunity to expand that systemwide.
Q: NYU Langone has made bold moves — like offering tuition-free medical education — that set it apart nationally. What’s the bigger picture vision behind that, and how do you see it influencing the future physician workforce?
AK: That’s been an incredible thing for us. We have two tuition-free medical schools — one here in Manhattan, and one in Long Island focused on primary care. It’s allowing us to do a lot.
For one, the burden of medical debt is enormous. It’s often more than $200,000, and that can influence career decisions. When Ken [Langone] and Dr. Grossman instituted tuition-free medical education, the hope was to take that financial pressure out of the equation.
It’s particularly important in primary care, and that’s something we’re really focused on — making sure we train the next generation of amazing primary care physicians who want to work in our system. That’s the future: making sure people have access to high-quality primary care in near real time.
Try finding a primary care doctor in the city right now — it’s very difficult. We want to take these amazing students we’re training, who want to go into primary care, and support them in staying in that discipline and working with us.
Q: Healthcare leaders today are navigating complex headwinds — rising costs, workforce strain, shifting reimbursement. How are you thinking about balancing operational demands with long-term innovation?
AK: If you provide the highest quality service, you’ll be in a strong position. We can’t necessarily change the environment, but I feel we’re well positioned to deal with it.
If we can’t deal with some of these headwinds, I’d be very concerned — because that means there aren’t many systems in the country that could. And that worries me. We can’t provide care to everyone in New York or across the country. So if other hospital systems are taking huge hits from these challenges, that’s concerning for the entire healthcare industry.
I’d add another reason I think we’re well positioned: years ago, we made the decision to predominantly focus on ambulatory expansion. Most of our growth has been asymmetric — we’re a system that’s mostly outpatient, with hospitals to support those patients.
So for many of the new rules and policies affecting hospitals, we’re in a strong position because of that ambulatory focus.
Q: If we were having this conversation five years from now, what would you hope people are saying about NYU Langone under your leadership?
AK: We have this amazing quality and safety track record, and we need to continue that. But I also want the patient experience to be on par with that — seamless, coordinated and with strong access.
There’s a big focus on access and experience. I hope people will be talking about how we’ve used technology in novel ways to make that happen — and how we focused on the experience while scaling quality throughout the system.
A lot of places have a “mothership” model — where the best care is centralized in the city. But we see it differently. There should be no mothership. It’s all one system.
Five years from now, I’d like to see a system where you can be anywhere — on vacation in Montauk or in Manhattan — and get the same level of care, the same access to technology and the same patient experience.
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