David A. Ansell

David A. Ansell was born in 1952 and spent his formative years in Binghamton, New York. After high school, he attended Franklin and Marshall College (B.A., 1974) and medical school at the SUNY Upstate Medical University (M.D., 1978). He received his Masters of Public Health from the University of Illinois School of Public Health (1991).{{cite book |author=David A. Ansell|title=County : life, death and politics at Chicago's public hospital|date=2013|isbn=978-0897337199|edition=Second}} After finishing medical school in 1978, Ansell trained at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital.

Ansell served at Cook County Hospital as attending physician for 13 years, joining other physicians in a new Division of General Medicine/Primary Care.{{Cn|date=March 2025}} In the mid 1980s, Ansell and colleagues noted an increase in patient dumping, in which patients are transferred to public hospitals due to a lack of health insurance. In 1984, Ansell joined a project led by Robert Schiff to document patient dumping in Chicago.{{cite web|title=Sick and wrong: Chronicle of Chicago's Public Hospital|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2011/07/22/sick-and-wrong-chronicle-of-chicagos-public-hospital/|website=Chicago Tribune|access-date=18 October 2016}} The same year, he founded and directed the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program at Cook County Hospital, which he used to combat race-based disparity in health care.{{Cn|date=March 2025}} He contributed to an article critical of the practice, "Transfers to a Public Hospital", that appeared in the February 1986 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine.{{cite journal|last1=Schiff|first1=R. L.|last2=Ansell|first2=D. A.|last3=Schlosser|first3=J. E.|last4=Idris|first4=A. H.|last5=Morrison|first5=A.|last6=Whitman|first6=S.|title=Transfers to a Public Hospital |journal=New England Journal of Medicine|date=1986|volume=314|issue=9|pages=552–557|doi=10.1056/nejm198602273140905|pmid=3945293}}

Ansell left Cook County Hospital in 1955 to become Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine of Mount Sinai Hospital, a private safety-net hospital in Chicago. Among other activities at Mount Sinai was the Sinai Urban Health Institute,{{cite web|title=About Sinai Urban Health Institute|url=http://www.sinai.org/content/sinai-urban-health-institute-0|website=Sinai Health System|access-date=19 October 2016}} a major health-disparity research and intervention center which he founded in 2002 with Steven Whitman. In 2006, he and Whitman published an article documenting the racial breast cancer mortality gap in Chicago. In response, they joined with others to found the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Taskforce to combat this disparity.{{cite web|title=Welcome|url= http://www.chicagobreastcancer.org|website=Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Taskforce|access-date=19 October 2016}}{{cite journal|last1=Hirschman|first1=Jocelyn|last2=Whitman|first2=Steven|last3=Ansell|first3=David A.|title=The black: white disparity in breast cancer mortality: the example of Chicago|journal=Cancer Causes & Control|date=2007|volume=18|issue=3|pages=323–333|doi=10.1007/s10552-006-0102-y|pmid=17285262|s2cid=3349878}} In 2015, Ansell helped found the DePaul-Rush Center for Community Health Equity a Chicago-based health equity educational and research center based at DePaul University and Rush University Medical Center.{{cite web|title=Homepage|url=http://www.healthequitychicago.org|website=Center For Community Health Equity|access-date=19 October 2016}}

• Division Chief, Division of General Medicine/Primary Care, Cook County Hospital, Chicago, IL, 1993-1995
• Chairperson, Department of Internal Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, Chicago, IL, 1995-2005
• Chief Medical Officer at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, 2005–2015
• Senior Vice President for System Integration/Community Health at Rush University Medical Center. Chicago, IL, 2015 to present.{{cite web|title=David A. Ansell, MD, MPH|url=https://doctors.rush.edu/Details/927|website=Rush University Medical Center|access-date=24 October 2016}}

Ansell first book was entitled, County: Life, Death, and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital. In the book, Ansell tells the story of his patients and colleagues during his seventeen years as a resident and attending physician at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital. County was released on July 1, 2011. The Wall Street Journal named it "one of the five best health books of 2011".{{cite web|title=Sick and wrong: Chronicle of Chicago's Public Hospital|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2011/07/22/sick-and-wrong-chronicle-of-chicagos-public-hospital/|website=Chicago Tribune|access-date=24 October 2016}}{{cite web|title=Their Zeal Changed Lives, if Not the System|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/health/views/26zuger.html?_r=4&emc=eta1|website=New York Times|access-date=24 October 2016}}{{cite web|title=Healing Reads: The Year's Five Best Books|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204553904577102710243208248|website=The Wall Street Journal|access-date=24 October 2016}} It was hailed as a "landmark book" by Julia Keller of the Chicago Tribune, aiming "to inform and to inspire" readers about the disparities in health care. In the book, Ansell argues that only a single-payer solution that provides access to all US residents regardless of circumstances can provide relief for those closed out of the health care system.{{cite web |title=Sick and wrong: Chronicle of Chicago's Public Hospital |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2011/07/22/sick-and-wrong-chronicle-of-chicagos-public-hospital/ |access-date=18 October 2016 |website=Chicago Tribune}}

His second book is entitled The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills, and was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2017{{cite book|last1=Ansell|first1=David A.|title=The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills|date=2017|publisher=University of Chicago PRess|isbn=978-0-226-42829-1|url=https://www.bibliovault.org/BV.book.epl?ISBN=9780226428154}}{{cite web|title=The Death Gap|url=http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo25081418.html|website=The University Of Chicago Press|access-date=24 October 2016}}

• County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago's Public Hospital {{ISBN|9780897336208}}
• The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills {{ISBN|9780226428154}}

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Category:American primary care physicians

Category:American healthcare managers

Category:Writers from Chicago

Category:1952 births

Category:Living people

Category:Writers from Binghamton, New York

Category:Activists from New York (state)