Deans’ Assistants Group (DAG)

By staying up to date on issues facing medical schools nationally, facilitating regular communication with a wide range of constituents, faculty, and students, and performing countless other responsibilities essential to the operations of the medical school, deans’ assistants are critical in helping academic medicine prepare future generations of physicians.

The Deans’ Assistants Group (DAG) provides an invaluable national forum for professional development and networking for individuals in these dynamic roles. Through its wide range of activities, DAG provides an interactive learning environment for you to exchange ideas with colleagues regarding administrative, institutional, and national policy matters affecting medical education, research, and patient care. By enabling you to meet colleagues from medical schools nationwide, DAG both promotes personal professional growth and helps foster inter-institutional cooperation.

Medical schools today face unprecedented opportunities and challenges, and the daily world of the medical school dean is growing increasingly complex – the continuing development and engagement of DAG members is key to ensuring that the nation’s medical schools can fulfill their individual missions.

Ann Steinecke
Sr. Director, Academic Affairs Programs and Engagement

The Deans' Assistants Group committees offer numerous opportunities for members to collaborate and participate in group decisions and governance.

Established in 1993, DAG provides an invaluable national forum for professional development and networking through which members can exchange ideas with colleagues regarding administrative, institutional, and national policy matters affecting medical education.

Members of DAG serve as administrative/executive assistants to deans in colleges of medicine. DAG’s mission is:

• To establish a national forum for the exchange of information and ideas among the deans’ offices of the schools of medicine.
• To foster interrelationships and discuss programs, policies and procedures, organizational structure, and issues of common interest as determined by the participants.
   

DAG members serve vitally important roles in today’s academic medicine enterprise, from keeping deans up-to-date on common issues facing medical schools to facilitating communications with a variety of internal and external stakeholders. Members of DAG meet twice annually for networking and professional development, in the fall (in conjunction with the AAMC Annual Meeting) and spring. Between meetings, members share information about topics relevant to their daily work and dean’s office operations via an online listserv. 

The Deans’ Assistants Group is not a supported entity of the AAMC. Membership is open to anyone who provides day-to-day assistance to the deans of medical schools of the AAMC.

Registration for the 2025 DAG Spring meeting is now open!

The meeting is being held at the InterContinental New Orleans, April 10-12, 2025. Please note our meeting is being held during French Quarter Fest, so please make sure you register as soon as possible to be able to get a hotel room.

Attendees must have a current DAG membership. Submit your 2025 membership application .

To register, please visit the DAG AAMC Virtual Community page. For more information, please contact The DAG Program Planning Committee at dagprogramplanning@gmail.com.