“If you don’t spend your time making things easier for those coming up behind you, you’re wasting your time on this earth.”
Frank Cacace, MD, FACP, is an accomplished physician, academic leader, medical educator, and healthcare advocate whose career has been defined by a commitment to primary care, patient-centered medicine, and the development of future generations of clinicians. Over more than three decades in internal medicine, he has built a professional legacy that combines frontline patient care with educational leadership, mentorship, healthcare systems experience, and advocacy for the relationship between patients and clinicians. Now retired from full-time clinical practice, Dr. Cacace is applying the perspective gained throughout his career to board service and healthcare advocacy, seeking opportunities where thoughtful leadership and deep clinical experience can help organizations improve patient outcomes, strengthen healthcare delivery, and support the professionals entrusted with caring for patients.
Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Cacace attended the New York City public school system before earning his undergraduate degree in biology from Amherst College, complemented by studies in political science. His early professional experience took him to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he worked in the Human Cancer Immunology laboratory and contributed to monoclonal antibody projects involving lung and prostate cancers. That experience provided an early foundation in scientific inquiry and clinical research, but Dr. Cacace ultimately discovered that his professional calling was rooted in direct patient care. He earned his Doctor of Medicine from New York Medical College, where his accomplishments included membership in Alpha Omega Alpha, before completing his internship and residency in internal medicine at North Shore University Hospital.
Dr. Cacace subsequently built a career in internal medicine that spanned approximately three decades at North Shore University Hospital and the organization that ultimately became Northwell Health. His work as a teaching internist allowed him to remain closely connected to patients while simultaneously shaping the development of medical residents, students, and other healthcare professionals. Over time, his responsibilities expanded well beyond clinical practice. He became deeply involved in ambulatory medicine education, evidence-based medicine, physician communication, clinical competency assessment, curriculum development, high-value care, social determinants of health, and interprofessional practice. This combination of direct patient experience and institutional leadership gave him an unusually practical understanding of how decisions made within complex healthcare systems ultimately influence clinicians, trainees, care teams, and the patients they serve.
A defining chapter of Dr. Cacace’s career was his leadership in graduate medical education. He served for many years as Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency and later as Associate Chief for Education in the Division of General Internal Medicine. In these roles, he helped develop competency- and milestone-based curricula, coordinated educational programming, supported faculty development, mentored physicians, and participated in initiatives designed to improve both medical education and patient care. His teaching extended from ambulatory clinical medicine and evidence-based practice to communication skills, social medicine, shared decision-making, high-value care, and team-based healthcare delivery. His CV reflects a sustained commitment to residency and medical student education as well as extensive administrative responsibility within Northwell’s academic medical environment.
Interprofessional collaboration became another important dimension of Dr. Cacace’s leadership. Through the IMPACcT clinic and related educational initiatives, he worked with physicians, physician assistants, pharmacists, psychologists, medical students, residents, and other members of the healthcare team to strengthen collaborative care. His educational work explored how professionals from different disciplines could learn together, communicate more effectively, understand one another’s roles, and ultimately provide more coordinated patient care. He helped develop and facilitate programming addressing team dynamics, conflict, healthcare silos, and interprofessional roles, demonstrating a leadership philosophy centered on collaboration rather than hierarchy.
Dr. Cacace’s influence as an educator has also extended beyond the clinical setting through presentations, workshops, scholarship, and professional organizations. He has presented on subjects including social determinants of health, evidence-based medicine, interprofessional collaboration, high-value care, patient-centered medical homes, clinician education, shared decision-making, and innovations in ambulatory training. His scholarly contributions have addressed interprofessional ambulatory training, obesity medicine education, social determinants of health, residency evaluation, and clinical medicine, while his narrative medicine writing has appeared through Johns Hopkins Medicine’s CLOSLER. He has also contributed a book chapter concerning the nuances and characteristics of medical tests. Together, these activities demonstrate his ability not only to practice and teach medicine, but also to translate clinical experience into ideas that can be shared across the broader medical community.
Recognition throughout his career reflects the importance Dr. Cacace places on teaching, mentorship, and humanistic medicine. He has received numerous faculty teaching awards, including the Candee Award for Medical Educator of the Year within Northwell’s Department of Medicine, and was recognized as Clinician Educator of the Year by the Society of General Internal Medicine’s Mid-Atlantic Region. He was also elected to the Academy of Medical Educators and received an education innovation grant supporting work on teaching social determinants of health. His professional involvement has included fellowship in the American College of Physicians and longstanding participation in the Society of General Internal Medicine, where he has served in reviewing, judging, moderating, committee, and educational capacities.
With his retirement from full-time clinical medicine, Dr. Cacace has entered a new stage of leadership centered on advocacy, board service, and the future of primary care. He serves as a Board Member with Medicine Forward, an organization focused on strengthening healthcare through humanistic change and preserving the essential space between physicians and patients. His broader advocacy interests include informing healthcare policy, protecting longitudinal patient-clinician relationships, supporting advanced primary care, and helping create an environment in which healthcare professionals can provide meaningful and sustainable care. For Dr. Cacace, retirement represents less a conclusion than an opportunity to redirect decades of accumulated knowledge toward organizations seeking experienced clinical perspective, mentorship, and mission-driven leadership.
As a board and advisory candidate, Dr. Cacace is particularly positioned to contribute to hospitals, clinics, health systems, primary care practices, physician organizations, medical education initiatives, healthcare nonprofits, and companies developing solutions for clinicians and patients. He brings the perspective of someone who has experienced healthcare from multiple vantage points: as a practicing physician, educator, administrator, mentor, researcher, advocate, and patient-team collaborator. He understands the realities of delivering care on the ground while also appreciating the organizational structures, educational systems, workforce considerations, and cultural dynamics that influence healthcare at scale. He is open to organizations of varying sizes and to travel for appropriate opportunities, with a primary interest in healthcare rather than finance or banking.
Central to Dr. Cacace’s leadership philosophy is the belief that professional experience carries an obligation to those who follow. His personal motto, based on a quotation of a hero of his, Roberto Clemente —“If you don’t spend your time making things easier for those coming up behind you, you’re wasting your time on this earth”—captures the philosophy that has shaped his work as an educator and mentor. Whether guiding residents, helping faculty become more effective teachers, advocating for primary care, or contributing at the board level, he approaches leadership as a form of stewardship. His objective is not simply to contribute what he has learned, but to use that knowledge to strengthen systems, support people, and leave healthcare better positioned for the next generation.
Outside his professional commitments, Dr. Cacace maintains interests that reflect both curiosity and connection. He enjoys playing piano, following baseball, collecting vintage baseball cards, reading, spending time with his nieces and nephews, and enjoying life with his wife, Ruthee, a stem cell transplant physician, and their dogs. He also speaks Spanish. These interests complement a professional identity deeply grounded in relationships, lifelong learning, and an appreciation for the human dimensions of medicine that can sometimes become obscured within increasingly complex healthcare systems.
Dr. Cacace now brings more than three decades of healthcare experience to organizations seeking a clinically grounded, education-oriented, and patient-focused voice. His career demonstrates the intersection of medicine, mentorship, institutional leadership, and advocacy, with particular depth in primary care and the education of physicians. As healthcare organizations confront questions surrounding workforce development, patient experience, clinician sustainability, medical education, team-based care, and the future of primary care, Dr. Cacace offers the perspective of a leader who has spent his career working at those intersections—and who remains motivated by a fundamental commitment to patients, clinicians, and those preparing to lead medicine next.
Character:
Dr. Cacace demonstrates character through a career grounded in service, mentorship, humanistic medicine, and sustained advocacy for patients and clinicians. His belief that experienced professionals should make the path easier for those who follow reflects a leadership philosophy based on stewardship, responsibility, and meaningful contribution.
Knowledge:
He possesses extensive knowledge of internal medicine, primary care, graduate and undergraduate medical education, evidence-based medicine, social determinants of health, interprofessional care, and the operation of complex healthcare systems. More than three decades of clinical practice, teaching, curriculum development, scholarship, and leadership allow him to connect academic knowledge with the everyday realities of patient care.
Strategic:
Dr. Cacace approaches healthcare challenges by considering the relationships among patients, clinicians, trainees, teams, educational structures, and larger health systems. His experience developing curricula, advancing interprofessional initiatives, leading educational programs, and participating in healthcare advocacy enables him to contribute a systems-oriented perspective to organizational discussions and long-term initiatives.
Communication:
A career spent teaching physicians, mentoring trainees, presenting to professional audiences, writing for medical publications, and communicating with patients has made communication central to Dr. Cacace’s professional identity. He is experienced in translating complex clinical and educational subjects into practical ideas that can engage diverse audiences while keeping the human purpose of healthcare at the center of the conversation.
