The Friends of the National Library of Medicine (FNLM) Board of Directors is pleased to announce three of its Directors have been elected as officers, effective in September of 2024. Dr. Peter Elkin will succeed Dr. Andrew Balas as Vice President, Sandra Franklin will step into the role of Treasurer, currently held by Dr. Dennis Cryer, and Dr. Kathleen McCormick will become Secretary. “ “Dr. Elkin, Dr. McCormick, and Sandra Franklin bring unique perspectives and rich experiences to our Board. With these Directors taking on new roles in September, the Friends of the NLM will be well positioned to continue its work promoting the National Library of Medicine in new and innovative ways,” said Glen P. Campbell, FNLM Chair.
Peter L. Elkin, MD, MACP, FACMI, FNYAM serves as Professor and Chair of the UB Department of Biomedical Informatics. He is also a Professor of Medicine at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Peter L. Elkin has served as a tenured Professor of Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. In this capacity he was the Center Director of Biomedical Informatics, Vice-Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine and the Vice-President of Mount Sinai hospital for Biomedical and Translational Informatics. Dr. Elkin has published over 120 peer reviewed publications. He received his Bachelors of Science from Union College and his M.D. from New York Medical College. He did his Internal Medicine residency at the Lahey Clinic and his NIH/NLM sponsored fellowship in Medical Informatics at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Elkin has been working in Biomedical Informatics since 1981 and has been actively researching health data representation since 1987. He is the primary author of the American National Standards Institute’s (ANSI) national standard on Quality Indicators for Controlled Health Vocabularies ASTM E2087, which has also been approved by ISO TC 215 as a Technical Specification (TS17117). He has chaired the Health and Human Services HITSP Technical Committee on Population Health. Dr. Elkin served as the co-chair of the AHIC Transition Planning Group. Dr. Elkin is a Master of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics. Dr. Elkin chairs the International Medical Informatics Associations Working Group on Human Factors Engineering for Health Informatics. Dr. Elkin is the Editor of the Springer Informatics Textbook, Terminology and Terminological Systems. He was awarded the Mayo Department of Medicine’s Laureate Award for 2005. Dr. Elkin is the index recipient of the Homer R. Warner award for outstanding contribution to the field of Medical Informatics.
Kathleen McCormick, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, FHIMSS is a leader and pioneer in Nursing Informatics nationally and internationally. In addition to three Fellowships, she is an elected member in the National Academy of Medicine. She received the Sigma Theta Tau’s Virginia Saba Leadership in Informatics Award in 2013. She received the Friends of the National Library of Medicine’s Nursing Informatics Award in 2015, and the Vision Award in Genomics and Bioinformatics from SRA.com in 2001. She also received an honorary law degree from Barry University in December, 1998. Between 1981-1988, Dr. McCormick was on the Board of Regents for the National Library of Medicine as the Surgeon General Alternate. In 1998, Dr. McCormick retired as a Captain (06) from the United States Public Health Service after 30 years. She began her business career with SRA.com and developed their Genomics and Bioinformatics and Life Sciences Solutions Program. In 2004, Kathleen became the Chief Scientist/VP at SAIC and in 2009 she joined SAIC-Frederick (now Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc.) as Senior Principal Scientist/VP. In 2015, she established SciMind, LLC and has published and consulted on translating genomics and pharmacogenomics to nursing process documentation. She has co-authored with Virginia Saba, the award-winning book, Essentials of Nursing Informatics, now in its 7th ed. (2021). She is also the author of Healthcare Information Technology: Exam Guide for CompTIA and Healthcare IT Technician and HIT Pro Certifications and a second edition entitled: Healthcare Information Technology Exam Guide for CHTS and CAHIMS Certification (2018) with Drs. Brian Gugerty and John E. Mattison. She is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Library of Medicine (FNLM), and has served as acting secretary since October 2023. She was elected Secretary of FNLM in 2024.
Sandra G. Franklin is director of Emory University’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, Atlanta, GA, since 2002. She has been a member of the Friends of the National Library of Medicine’s Board of Directors since 2020, and co-chair of the FNLM Education Committee since 2021.
In her role as director, Sandra serves on numerous Emory library and campus committees. Sandra’s professional association activity includes service to the Southern Chapter/MLA as Treasurer and President; service to the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries as chair of the NLM/AAHSL Future Leadership Committee, Board member and President; service to Medical Library Association as chair Credentialing Committee, Nominating Committee, Board of Directors, chair of the Local Assistance Committee for MLA 2018, chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Task Force, and member of the African American Medical Librarians Alliance since the 1990’s. Sandra is the 2015 SC/MLA Academic Librarian of the Year and 2017 Fellow of the Medical Library Association. She was selected to deliver the MLA 2021 Janet Doe Lecture.
Sandra is married, the mother of two adult sons, grandmother to three, and caregiver for a 98-year-old.
