Thomas M. Priselac
President and CEO Emeritus of Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Health System
PARTNERS’ 25TH ANNUAL VISION & EXCELLENCE IN HEALTHCARE
LEADERSHIP TRIBUTE DINNER
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2025, 6-9PM
FAIRMONT CENTURY PLAZA IN LOS ANGELES, CA.
Award winner found a path that led to serving multitudes.
Many Californians remember January 17, 1994, as the day of the deadly Northridge earthquake. It was also Tom Priselac’s first day as President and CEO of Cedars-Sinai.
Staff members made “I survived Tom Priselac’s first day” T-shirts, but under his leadership for 30 years, Cedars-Sinai didn’t just survive but thrived. It developed from a well-known regional hospital into one of the nation’s highest-regarded academic health systems.
In recognition of his service, Priselac, now President and CEO Emeritus of Cedars-Sinai, is being honored with the Partners in Care Foundation’s 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award.
“There’s an old saying that the most meaningful recognition is that which comes from your peers,” said Priselac. “The Partners in Care Foundation and all of the individuals with the organization are completely dedicated to creating a healthy culture and healthy society. I’ve dedicated my career over the last 45 years at Cedars-Sinai, and 30 as CEO, trying to make sure Cedars-Sinai is doing all it can to achieve that same goal. To be recognized by an organization that has such common values and commitment to health and healthcare is a real honor.”
Under Priselac’s leadership, Cedars-Sinai broadened its services throughout the region to enable more Southern California residents to access high-quality healthcare. He also greatly expanded the institution’s focus on medical research and education, leading to many scientific advances that have benefited patients around the world, while providing training for thousands of physicians and other healthcare professionals. During his tenure as President and CEO, he focused on improving the health of the region’s underserved communities, establishing hundreds of partnerships with local community organizations designed to strengthen them and those they serve.
In many ways, Priselac has come a long way from Turtle Creek, the small, classic mill town just east of Pittsburgh, where he grew up.
His father was an independent baked-goods salesman who delivered bread and other baked goods to schools in the mornings. Priselac often joined him in the afternoon, making home deliveries. “There were economics lessons, learning about covering his fixed costs and variable costs, and customer service lessons that were part of that experience,” he said.
“Like many of us, my parents raised me with the notion of whatever you do in life, do something that’s going to make a difference in people’s lives. That was a message that was driven home on a regular basis.
“That set a kind of philosophical foundation as I was growing up, for which a career in healthcare made all the sense in the world. As I went through grade school and high school, I developed a strong interest in science and medicine.”
Priselac entered Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, with plans to become a doctor.
“I did all the things that one does to go to medical school, but those experiences led me to conclude that while I still had a very strong interest in healthcare, taking care of one patient at a time was not really what I thought was going to be right for me. I think it’s true for many people at that age. I knew what I didn’t want to do, but I had less of an idea of what I did want to do.”
In the first of a series of what he described as serendipitous experiences that had a major role in his life, he saw a flyer on a bulletin board as he was leaving the biology building one night. It described a graduate program in health planning at the University of Pittsburgh.
“That sounded interesting to me, for whatever reason, so I tore off one of the little slips,” he said. While earning his master’s in public health, health services administration and planning, he came to see that being a part of a community-based academic medical center was one of the best ways he could fulfill his parents’ vision of giving back.
Health planning students were required to work three months in a hospital, he learned. “If you were a hospital administration student, you were required to work three months in a planning agency, to walk in the other person’s shoes, and have an appreciation of what they deal with. To be honest with you, until I went to graduate school, I didn’t even know there was such a field as hospital administration.”
In another serendipitous moment, the chief operating officer at Montefiore Hospital (which was later absorbed into the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) invited Priselac to spend his three-month internship there. “You could think of Montefiore Hospital as a smaller version of Cedars-Sinai, a community-based academic medical center with a very significant patient care, medical education and research agenda, as well as a big commitment to community service and community benefit,” said Priselac.
“That’s really when I had an awakening, I guess you could call it. I could see that my interest in science and medicine and research, which remains strong, could combine with making an impact on a larger community scale.”
Like Cedars-Sinai, Montefiore was founded by the Jewish community. “In Judaic tradition, there’s the notion of Tikkun Olam, which is to heal the world. I could see that very evident in the organization,” he said.
When he finished his graduate degree, Priselac began working at Montefiore Hospital in strategic planning. He was in charge of the ambulatory care programs, which included a hospital-based clinic and two community health centers. “For the first four years of my career, I was fully engaged in that, and thought that I had a great future there, which I did,” he said. “And then, the most significant serendipitous moment of my life happened, and I met Jody, the woman who would become my wife.
“She and her family are from Los Angeles. After a record-breaking, short, whirlwind romance, I guess is the easiest way to summarize it, I suggested we get married. She said, “I agree, but I don’t want to live in Pittsburgh.’ She comes from an Italian family, and if you know Italian families, they’re very close-knit.
“Fortunately, Irwin Goldberg, who was the CEO at Montefiore Hospital, called Stuart Marylander [then the president of Cedars-Sinai] to say that he had an individual who was moving to Los Angeles, that they wish I wasn’t, but they knew they couldn’t stop me. He suggested that Stuart might want to arrange to have me interviewed by some folks at Cedars-Sinai, which he did.”
Priselac was hired in 1979 as an assistant administrator at Cedars-Sinai. His responsibilities soon expanded beyond the three departments he was originally responsible for, and he was promoted to executive vice president in 1988. In 1984, he became the Chief Operating Officer at Cedars-Sinai.
“For me at that age, it couldn’t get much better than that,” he said. “I served in that role for the next 10 years. Then, in 1994, the board offered me the position of CEO. If you do what I have done for a living, frankly, there’s no better place in America to do it.”
While Priselac’s leadership at Cedars-Sinai transformed the institution into a national healthcare powerhouse, his impact extended far beyond its walls. In Part 2, we explore Priselac’s broader contributions to healthcare policy and his enduring legacy of mentorship and community engagement.
Stay tuned for Part 2.
