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Rollin J. (Terry) Fairbanks, MD

Dr. Fairbanks has served in many national and international advisory roles as an authority on patient safety and innovation. He is being honored with the John Benjamin Nichols Award for outstanding contributions toward improving the health of the community on May 14, 2021.

As Vice President for Quality and Safety for MedStar Health, he currently oversees and leads patient safety across the entire MedStar Health system. Over the past year, he spearheaded enhanced safety measures and testing to ensure patients could continue to receive care without risking exposure to the COVID pandemic. 

He is known for inspiring people to think differently about healthcare’s approach to quality, safety, and risk. Board-certified in emergency medicine, he has master's degree in industrial systems engineering/human factors engineering to the field of healthcare. Using this expertise, he established the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, a unique system safety engineering program that has become one of the largest of its kind in the United States.

Dr. Fairbanks has been named by Becker’s Hospital Review to the list of "Top 50 Experts Leading the Field of Patient Safety" and he was recently recognized with the 2021 Robert L. Wears Patietn Safety Leadership Award. He is a national and international speaker and has contributed to more than 150 publications and co-edited a book on cognitive systems engineering in healthcare.