2024 Clinical Leadership for Physicians
This awardee has overseen the expansion of hospitalists from 40 to more than 100 physicians and APPs at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

Rachel Cyrus, MD, SFHM, is an associate professor of medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. She has been the clinical practice director for the Division of Hospital Medicine at Northwestern since 2012. In this role, she has overseen the expansion of hospitalists from 40 to over 100 physicians and APPs who provide care for 290 complex patients across 12 units daily.
She has also facilitated many changes to the physician support and service structure from the proposal and incorporation of advanced practice providers to localization, the creation of staffing buffers, changing to an admitter/rounder model, and the addition of a nurse role that helps coordinate discharges. Despite the rapid growth, hospitalist engagement scores have remained among the best in the past 20 years.
Dr. Cyrus participates in and leads numerous local quality committees. Her leadership roles include serving currently as the first hospitalist chief of staff as well as associate chief medical officer for Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Within SHM, she has been a member of the Practice Management Committee since 2017 and is finishing her third year as chair of this committee. She has also served as faculty and course co-director for the Practice Management Advanced Learning Courses.
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