WALTHAM – Dr. Rebecca Weintraub Brendel, a board-certified psychiatrist, has been named president of the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS), the statewide professional association of physicians and medical students.
Brendel will begin her one-year stint as MMS president later this month, succeeding Dr. Olivia Liao. As president, she will lead the organization's efforts in advancing health care and advocating for patients and physicians across the state.
Brendel is director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, where she is Frances Glessner Lee associate professor of global health and social medicine in the field of legal medicine and associate professor of psychiatry. Her clinical practice
is based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where she is director of ethics for the Chester M. Pierce, MD Division of Global Psychiatry and director of law and ethics at the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior.
Brendel is a longtime member of the MMS and has served on multiple MMS committees, including as vice-chair and chair of the Committee on Ethics, Grievances, and Professional Standards.
Brendel’s extensive experience in leadership includes serving as president of the American Psychiatric Association from 2022 to 2023, of which she is a Distinguished Fellow. She is also a past president and fellow of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison
Psychiatry. Currently, she is a co-opted consultant to the World Psychiatric Association Ethics Committee and served as chair in her final year of a seven-year appointment to the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs
from 2025 to 2026.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts in philosophy with distinction from Yale College. She graduated with honors from both the University of Chicago Law School and the Pritzker School of Medicine. Her postgraduate training includes a medical internship at
Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a psychiatry residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital, followed by a forensic psychiatry fellowship at MGH. She was also an Edmond J. Safra Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Harvard University. In
addition to her medical qualifications, Dr. Brendel is admitted to the Massachusetts Bar.
