Safak Guven, MD, MBA
Consultant, Joint Commission International
Dr. Guven is a physician executive with board certification in endocrinology with specific focus on obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes. He has been recognized for outcome-driven clinical program and system development in hospitals/outpatient clinics and has international management leadership experience in developing strategic alliances between for-profit firms and non-profit organizations.
Dr. Guven is an active national and international medical management speaker and consultant, specializing in strategic planning, leadership development, and operations/process improvement in hospitals, quality management, team creation, and physician/administration relationships. He has traveled extensively, having visited more than 30 countries. A physician executive with global exposure and network, he enjoys working with every aspect of health care across different cultures.
Dr. Guven established and implemented an endocrine clinic at Thedacare, Wisconsin as part of a strategic alliance initiative with the Medical College of Wisconsin. He also served as a diabetes council expertise member for Touchpoint Health Plan, an HMO insurance company that served 160,000 people (recognized as one of the best per NCQA standards), to develop strategic planning as well as implementation.
Dr. Guven organized international meetings and was Secretary/Organizer for the Turkish Endocrine Society/American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE). He is the founder and first President of the Turkish American Doctors Association of Midwest (TADAM), Chicago, Illinois. TADAM brings Turkish doctors who live in 12 Midwest states together and serves as a professional network. He serves as Medical Advisor for the City of Milwaukee project as part of the national “Ten City Diabetes Challenge” that has been accepted as an initiative to improve diabetes care in 10 selected citywide projects across the USA. Dr. Guven established a Diabetes Care Center at the University of Cairo, Egypt and helped to establish the Diabetes Nurse Association as well as the credentialing system in Turkey.
He is co-author of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) “Bariatric Surgery (national) Guidelines” in collaboration with NAASO (North American Association of Society for Obesity) currently in press and Endocrinology/Diabetes chapters in Porth’s Pathophysiology (Lippincott). He has served on several committees over the last 10 years and has established Fellows Clinical Corner. He has also served as the Associate Editor of the official journal of AACE for the last five years.
Dr. Guven was an Assistant Professor of Endocrinology at Medical College of Wisconsin, where he established and served as Clinical Director of the Metabolic Syndrome/Medical Obesity Clinic for four years. He has been as Associate Professor (Docent) in Turkey since 1998. Dr. Guven is board-certified in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism in the United States and Turkey and holds medical licenses in Wisconsin and California.
Dr. Guven graduated from Marmara University School of Medicine; served as a Research Fellow at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, and completed a transitional Internship at the University of Pennsylvania, Presbyterian Medical Center and an Internal Medicine Residency and Endocrine Fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He has received his Executive MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.