Health Care

Ashkar named LGH’s CMO

Dr. Ziad M. Ashkar, who has practiced as a nephrologist at Acadiana Renal Physicians since 2002, was named chief medical officer of Lafayette General Health effective Nov. 1.

Dr. Ziad M. Ashkar

Dr. Ziad M. Ashkar, who has practiced as a nephrologist at Acadiana Renal Physicians since 2002, was named chief medical officer of Lafayette General Health effective Nov. 1.

As CMO of the LGH system, he will work to align best practices across all affiliated hospitals and will be working closely with system administrators to develop and assess quality metrics used to drive excellence in the delivery of health care.

Starting as a physician in Mamou in 1995, Ashkar has built a career in both the teaching and practicing of medicine.

He most recently served as section chief of medicine teaching LSU residents at University Hospital & Clinics. He had taken over that teaching program and helped guide it to full accreditation in February. Once he assumes the CMO position, Ashkar will give up his private practice but will continue to teach residents.

Having practiced at Lafayette General Medical Center since in 2009, Ashkar served as chief medical officer of the hospital from 2011-2013. As LGMC’s CMO, he was in charge of the hospitalist program, quality department and medical staff office. He was also a member of LGMC’s Medical Executive Committee and was chairman of medicine from 2009-2011.

Ashkar earned his bachelor of science and his doctor of medicine from American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where he also completed his internship in surgery. He did his residency in internal medicine at Good Samaritan Hospital of Maryland- Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. Following a fellowship in nephrology at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., Ashkar earned an MBA from LSU in Baton Rouge; a master of public health at Johns Hopkins; and a doctor of science from Tulane University.

Certifications that Dr. Ashkar has held include the following: American Board of Internal Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine in Nephrology, American Society of Hypertension (as a specialist in clinical hypertension) and the National Board of Public Health Examiners.

In his academic teaching experience, Ashkar has been a teacher of LSU residents as both a clinical associate professor and clinical assistant professor of medicine at LGMC and at UHC. He also mentored and taught LSU family practice residents in nephrology from 2007-2013. From 1996 to 2002, he was a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans.

Ashkar, 50, is trilingual (English, French and Arabic); he was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and raised mostly in Lebanon.