Dr. Steven J. Stack, MD, MBA, FACEP took on the role of secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services on June 30 after serving as commissioner since February 2020. He resides in Lexington ​and is a board-certified emergency physician.

For over 20 years, Dr. Stack has been a leader in the medical field. 

He has served on boards of directors and in senior leadership roles for 

numerous geographic and specialty medical societies. In 2006, he was the first emergency physician ever elected to the American Medical Association (AMA) board of trustees, subsequently serving as board chair and in 2015-2016 as the AMA’s youngest president since 1854.

Dr. Stack has served as medical director of multiple emergency departments, 

including St. Joseph East (Lexington), St. Joseph Mt. Sterling (rural eastern Kentucky), and Baptist Memorial Hospital (Memphis, Tenn.). He has over 18 years of experience in emergency medicine, including administrative and clinical practice, in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee.

In 2018, Dr. Stack joined the University of Tennessee Haslam College of Business as an adjunct professor. In this role, he lectures on healthcare policy and the mechanics of advocacy to physicians in the Physician Executive MBA (PEMBA) program as well as to both physician and non-physician healthcare leaders enrolled in executive education programs.

Dr. Stack has focused experience in health information technology (IT). A nationally recognized advocate, he bridges bedside care with governmental policy and has served on numerous federal advisory committees for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) from 

2010-2016. Additionally, he served from 2012 – 2016 as board member and secretary of eHealth Initiative, a Washington, DC-based non-profit association improving health care through the advancement of health IT. His other areas of expertise include emergency department and hospital management, health system reform, physician licensure and regulation, and healthcare anti-trust issues.

Dr. Stack has extensive experience in policymaking and advocacy at federal, state, and county levels before legislative bodies and executive branch regulatory agencies. He is also a skilled public spokesperson and longtime advocate for universal access to affordable and high-quality healthcare.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Dr. Stack graduated magna cum laude from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where he was a Henry Bean Scholar for classical studies. He then returned to Ohio to complete medical school and emergency medicine residency at The Ohio State University before moving to Memphis to begin his clinical practice. In 2006, Dr. Stack and his family relocated to Lexington.