Stephen Klasko, MD, MBA

CEO, USF Health
Dean, USF College of Medicine

Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, has bridged the art, science and business of medicine through a unique background consisting of academic and administrative medicine, clinical practice and business training. He now runs USF Health, an inter-professional partnership dedicated to transforming health care, and the wider concept of health.

As Senior Vice President and CEO for USF Health at the University of South Florida, he is building a unique partnership among colleges of medicine, nursing and public health, as well as a school of physical therapy and biomedical science. As Dean of the College of Medicine at USF, he has begun a change process to take a young medical school and create a modern clinical, educational and research program based on the entrepreneurial- academic model.

Dr. Klasko moved to Tampa, Florida, in 2004 after his previous role as Dean of Drexel University College of Medicine and CEO of Drexel University Physicians. Dr. Klasko received his BS in Chemistry and Biology from Lehigh University. He received his MD from Hahnemann University in Philadelphia. He completed his OB-GYN residency at Health East Teaching Hospitals and became a diplomate of the American Board of OB-GYN in 1984. In 1996, Dr. Klasko successfully completed the Wharton Executive MBA at the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors.

Since that time, he has served on the faculty of the Governance Institute, a health care think tank for academic institutions, the faculty of several Wharton seminars for medical leaders, and has been asked to speak throughout the country regarding his research on physician motivation and negotiation. He is the founding president of Spirit of Women, a national program for improving women’s health, which has now been embraced by over one hundred hospitals. He is on the board of trustees for Lehigh University’s college of engineering and is currently a board examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Dr. Klasko authored a book entitled, The Phantom Stethoscope: A Field Manual for Finding an Optimistic Future in Medicine. Through the innovative approach of combining science fiction with business and clinical expertise, Dr. Klasko and his co-author, a Wharton professor and health care consultant, take a history of the future approach to predicting what skill sets physicians will need over the next ten years. JAMA in their June, 2000 review called The Phantom Stethoscope a "must read for every board member and anyone else who wants to understand the challenges of medicine in the future". His current book "Collision Course: The Privatization of Academic Health Care" will be available shortly.