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One of the most lifechanging experiences for Andrew D. Racine, M.D., Ph.D., FAAP, came when he decided to live in Tanzania after graduating from Harvard College in 1974.
Dr. Racine wanted to spend a year seeing what life was like under former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, who instituted a form of socialist ideology called Ujamaa. He reached out to several hospitals run by the Flying Doctors to see if his experience in clinical laboratory work would be useful in the east African country and eventually served at The Dareda Mission Hospital in Babati.
“Most of the work done in the lab was parasitology,” Dr. Racine said. “I learned about diagnosing malaria, diagnosing hookworm and a variety of other parasitic infections that were fairly prevalent. We also did a lot of tuberculosis testing, which was endemic in the region at the time.”
As an outsider who didn’t understand the local culture and language, he faced many challenges but found acceptance by joining the village soccer team.
“My experience there was transformative. I learned about what inclusion means, what it feels like to be someone who was an outsider who doesn’t really belong, someone who people go out of their way to make part of the community,” he said.
Dr. Racine now serves as executive director of Montefiore Medical Group at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., and system senior vice president and chief medical officer of Montefiore Health System.
He is running for AAP president-elect against Lily J. Lou, M.D., FAAP. The winner will serve as AAP president in 2026.
Finding his calling
Dr. Racine was born in New York City to Martin, a businessman, and Bena, who was politically active. His family moved to Great Neck, Long Island, when he was 3 years old.
Dr. Racine decided he wanted to become a doctor while at Harvard. After returning from Tanzania, he earned his medical degree from New York University (NYU) School of Medicine in 1983 and his Ph.D. in economics from NYU in 1987.
He completed a pediatric internship (1984) and residency (1986) at Boston Children’s Hospital as well as a program for clinical chiefs of services at Harvard School of Public Health in 1999.
When he began his career as an instructor in the Department of Pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, Dr. Racine joined the AAP. It has been his home for the past four decades.
“Joining the AAP was a way to tap into pediatric experience across the country and find people who were not just doing general pediatrics in urban, underserved environments like I was, but people who were practicing pediatrics in a variety of settings. It was quite eye-opening and very helpful in terms of my own career,” he said.
That career included serving as an assistant professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, assistant director of pediatrics at the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center, associate director of pediatrics at Jacobi Medical Center and director of the Division of General Pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center.
Dr. Racine became more involved with the Academy after reconnecting with medical school classmate and New York City Chapter President Paul B. Yellin, M.D., FAAP.
“It was at the chapter level that I began to work in the advocacy arena,” Dr. Racine said.
Over the years, he served as chair of the chapter’s advocacy committee, chapter vice president and president. “It was a wonderful experience. We worked with a host of really talented people who collaborated across chapters with our local chapter, who were really helpful and from whom I learned an enormous amount.”
Seeking federal change
While he thought about running for AAP president-elect in the past, Dr. Racine said he believes now is the right moment for him to take on the leadership role.
“The opportunity to run for the position of president-elect is just very humbling and extraordinary,” Dr. Racine said. “This is an institution that is so vital to the health of America’s children that being in a leadership position is something I look forward to.”
If elected, his key goals include addressing issues that impact children’s health, including education, nutrition, access to clean air and water, and mental health. He also plans to address “burdensome” issues pediatricians face related to electronic medical record documentation, practice consolidations and payment struggles.
“In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said he had come to cash a check that America had written to its African American citizens and that promissory note had come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ I believe this country has a promissory note to its children; that it has underinvested in their education, in their safety, in their nutrition, etc.,” he said.
To achieve broad changes for all U.S. children, Dr. Racine said the AAP needs to work with others who share its mission and focus on federal legislation. Among his goals are federalizing Medicaid, reinstituting the refundable child tax credit and guaranteeing free preschool for all.
“We need to talk to people who can actually make a difference here,” Dr. Racine said. “I’m talking about the United States Senate. If we can get them to share our vision of what pediatric health care is all about, then we can actually make some progress.”
A good book and swim
Away from practice, Dr. Racine is an avid reader. He currently is reading “The Experience of Defeat” by Christopher Hill, “In the Shadow of Justice” by Katrina Forrester and has gone back to re-read “A Theory of Justice” by John Rawls.
He also enjoys swimming. “I’m an open water swimmer, and I like to swim the Great Peconic Bay when I get the chance.”
He loves to travel with his wife, Kathleen Stephansen, and their daughters, Emma, a clinical psychologist, and Sophie, an audiologist.
“My wife was born in a little town in Norway called Voss,” Dr. Racine said. “Her family lives in Europe so we go there with some frequency, which I enjoy enormously.”
