Steven Crawford, MD, DABFM, FAAFP

As the Chair of the OU College of Medicine’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine (DFPM) and the Christian N. Ramsey, Jr., M.D. Endowed Chair in Family Medicine for the over 20 years, Dr. Crawford oversaw a vibrant academic clinical operation whose faculty is involved in all levels of medical education, pre-medical through post-graduate. Since 1969, over 300 graduates of the department’s residency programs have established practices throughout our state, many in rural and other medically underserved areas. These clinicians provide a broad-based primary care for approximately 30,000 patients of all ages annually seeing nearly 50,000 outpatients in our family medicine clinics. The department’s research efforts are primarily focused on practice-based investigations involving multiple primary care practices throughout Oklahoma. The department’s innovative researchers have helped pioneer approaches to help primary care practices transform to a new, more efficient and patient centered model of care. Dr. Crawford assisted and guided the faculty to successfully obtain many grants and contracts over the 20 years he served as the department’s academic leader. In addition, he directed a very successful primary care policy program that has been crucial to the development of pioneering health coverage systems to cover the uninsured within Oklahoma. From January 2020 until June 2023, he served as the Senior Associate Dean and Director of the Office of Healthcare Innovation and Policy in the OU College of Medicine. A major part of this role was to continue to support OU’s existing research efforts in Dissemination and Implementation Science with a focus on translating research findings into community settings. Along with multiple colleagues, he has been successful in obtaining over $20 million in grants to help improve the quality of healthcare for all Oklahomans in areas of heart health, pain management, mental health screening, and COVID-19 screening in underserved populations. In addition, he currently serves as the co-PI on a federal grant to increase the number of medical students from rural and underserved populations pursuing careers in primary health care to underserved populations.