UNIONDALE, NY / ACCESS Newswire / September 29, 2025 / Marquis Who's Who honors Peter Aran, MD, as a Top Doctor for his expertise in health care and higher education. Before his retirement, Dr. Aran was the associate dean for clinical affairs and chief medical officer at the University of Oklahoma School of Community Medicine.

About Dr. Aran

Dr. Aran is the son of a U.S. Air Force captain and was born at the Air Force Base in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico. He also served as a physician and surgeon during this time. Choosing to emulate his father in the latter profession, Dr. Aran enrolled in college to pursue a medical career. Throughout his academic journey, his teachers nurtured his growth and supported his scholastic endeavors.

Dr. Aran received a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Iowa's Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, where he also completed his residency. Later, he completed fellowships in gastroenterology and hepatology at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Dr. Aran was in private practice for some time while also serving in various leadership roles at the Saint Francis Health System. He was ultimately appointed to the systemwide board of directors and served in that capacity for 13 years. Dr. Aran worked in private practice but was offered the opportunity to serve as the chief medical officer of a health system whose flagship hospital was the largest in the state.

Notable Achievements in the Medical Field

One of Dr. Aran's more significant career achievements took place when he was asked to co-chair the largest national collaborative dealing with implementing a type of health care delivery termed "accountable care" in the practice of medicine. Working with the Premier Healthcare Alliance of North Carolina, he and co-chair Joe Damore worked with over two dozen health systems in the United States as part of this accountable care collaborative. Its aim was to improve health care delivery, incorporating many of the features that are now thought of as "population health". Dr. Aran was later asked to be the medical director of population health for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma, one of the select health insurance companies chosen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to participate in these health care innovations.

This effort, along with those of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovations (CMMI), attempted to improve coordination between health systems, their doctors and nurses, and health insurance providers. Dr. Aran was particularly interested in expanding the concept of the "health care team" to include physician assistants, pharmacists, social workers and nutritionists, along with the insurance providers. While this concept was not new at that time, it was not commonly utilized to the extent that it was in some other areas of health care. Dr. Aran, a transplant physician, was part of a highly functioning, multi-professional team at the University of Chicago and hoped that these practices could be duplicated for all patients, not just transplant patients. Most importantly, Dr. Aran worked to incorporate the patients' caregivers (lay caregivers) into those expanded health care teams.

Dr. Aran attributes his success to his teachers, patients, and, most importantly, to his wife, Sofia, of 46 years. After obtaining a PhD in neuropharmacology from the University of Illinois, she completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago. Unfortunately, after several years of research, her career was cut short due to the responsibility of raising their four children.

When he reflects on his long, successful career in health care and education, Dr. Aran is proud of his students' achievements and his influence on their success as health care providers. The advice he imparts is based on the experience and knowledge he gained during his own career, which he admits was often all-consuming.

"Your community, your patients and the families of your patients see you as a leader, even though you may not view yourself that way. Because of this responsibility, you will have opportunities in your life to make an impact beyond the microscopic effect of taking care of individual patients and their families," Dr. Aran says.

Embracing Community

Dr. Aran often told medical students and resident physicians that their patients, their patients' families, and their communities thought of them as leaders, even in areas of life outside of medicine. While many doctors did not "sign up" for this responsibility, he urged that they assume that role and challenge as part of their commitment to improving health care delivery.

"You can affect much larger groups of people, sometimes even outside of health care," Dr. Aran says.

About Marquis Who's Who^®:
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America^®, Marquis Who's Who^® has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Who's Who in America^® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms worldwide. The suite of Marquis^® publications can be viewed at the official Marquis Who's Who^® website, www.marquiswhoswho.com.

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SOURCE: Marquis Who's Who