Padmaja Patel, MD, is a board-certified internist and national leader in lifestyle medicine and health system transformation. She serves as President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) and Chief Medical Officer at Nudj Health. 

Dr. Patel's quality and payment-reform work spans the field's leading national bodies. She serves on the Primary Care Collaborative's Whole Person workgroup and advises the Texas Medical Board's committee on Alternative Payment Models. She is President and Quality Committee Chair of Midland Quality Alliance, an ACO REACH organization in Midland, TX, and a gubernatorial appointee to the Texas Nutrition Advisory Committee. Her prior national service includes the National Quality Forum's Leadership Consortium and Healthcare Professional Stakeholder Advisory Council, as well as the Endorsement and Maintenance Committee of the Partnership for Quality Measurement. She is founding Chair of ACLM's Clinical Practice and Quality Committee.

A recognized innovator in care delivery, Dr. Patel built and directed the Lifestyle Medicine Center at Midland Health, including an office-based intensive cardiac rehabilitation program for physicians, and has delivered intensive therapeutic lifestyle change (ITLC) programs for chronic-disease remission in both in-person and virtual settings. Her integration of lifestyle medicine into employee and population health has produced significant cost savings. As Lifestyle Medicine Medical Director at Wellvana, a national value-based care organization, she designed models to embed lifestyle medicine within ACOs and Medicare Advantage, and she has served as Vice President of the World Lifestyle Medicine Organization.

Dr. Patel is a Fellow of ACLM and a Certified Lifestyle Medicine Intensivist, and received the 2023 AMWA Inspire Award for her leadership, advocacy, and patient care. She is co-founder of Healthy City, a nonprofit promoting plant-based nutrition and lifestyle medicine in her community.