Dr. John Patrick Co is vice president of Graduate Medical Education (GME) and designated institutional official for Mass General Brigham and associate professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
A board-certified general pediatrician, Dr. Co has served in leadership roles at the department, institutional, and health system levels in several areas, including medical education, quality and safety, health equity, and operations. As Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)’s Director of Pediatric Ambulatory Quality and Safety, he chaired the department’s ambulatory operations committee, and led the development and implementation of its quality incentive program, as well as its strategy for improving psychological safety across clinical divisions and units. As MGH’s inaugural Medical Director for Equity, he worked with leaders across departments to establish the institution’s approach for identifying and addressing inequities in access, patient experience, and quality, as well as helped manage incidents related to professionalism and bias.
Dr. Co has served in local, regional, and national roles related to GME and quality of care, including as Chair of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors Research Task Force, as a member of the American Board of Pediatrics Foundation Board of Directors, and on the Expert Advisory Panel for the Children’s Hospital GME Quality Bonus System. He co-chaired the ACGME’s Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) Evaluation Committee, helping lead the development and assessment of the CLER Program, several CLER National Reports of Findings, and the CLER Pathways to Excellence 2.0. He has served in editorial roles with several leading journals, including Ambulatory/Academic Pediatrics, Pediatrics (Quality Reports), and JAMA Pediatrics (Clinical Review and Education). Dr. Co has served as Principal and/or Co-Investigator on projects funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, World Health Organization, and American Medical Association (AMA), including currently serving as the Principal Investigator on an AMA-funded Reimaging Residency Grant looking at the feasibility and outcomes of competency-based time-variable advancement in residency. He is currently a member of the State of Massachusetts’ Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety Education Advisory Group.
Dr. Co received his BA in biology and economics from Cornell University, MD from the Stanford University School of Medicine, and MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. Following a pediatrics residency at Stanford, he completed fellowships in general pediatric academic development at Johns Hopkins and pediatric health services research at Harvard. In 2023, he received his MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.