Office of Academic Affiliations
OAA Leaders | Executive Director of Health Professions Education
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Dr. Erin PatelExecutive Director of Health Professions EducationVeterans Health Administration |
Dr. Erin Patel is the Executive Director of Health Professions Education for the Office of Academic Affiliations (OAA), Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration (VHA). In this role, she oversees the largest health professions educational portfolio in the nation that includes over 118,000 health professions trainees (HPTs) annually in more than 60 different disciplines.
Dr. Patel is a board-certified geropsychologist with more than 16 years’ experience in VA. Most recently, Dr. Patel served as the Acting Chief of Health Professions Education and before that was the Director of the Associated Health Education section within OAA.
Dr. Patel received a BS from the University of Florida and a PsyD from Nova Southeastern University. She completed a pre-doctoral internship in clinical psychology at the Vanderbilt University/Tennessee Valley Healthcare System (TVHS) Veterans Affairs Medical Center Internship Consortium. She has a certificate in Medical Informatics from the American Medical Informatics Association. Dr. Patel works clinically at VA TVHS with a primary focus on caring for patients with dementia and education of staff and HPTs. She served as Director of Training and Assistant Chief of Psychology at VA TVHS prior to joining OAA. She also served the Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, Informatics Section in support of modernization of the Mental Health Assistant application. She is the Past President and Executive Director of the Tennessee Psychological Association. Dr. Patel has held faculty appointments at Vanderbilt University in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry.
