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 under-resourced 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.
Part 2: A Legacy of Leadership and Impact Beyond Cedars-Sinai
While Priselac’s ascent to CEO established his transformative leadership at Cedars-Sinai, his vision extended far beyond the medical center itself.
Under Priselac’s leadership, Cedars-Sinai Health System expanded the reach of its care across the Los Angeles region through the acquisition of Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital, affiliations with Torrance Memorial Health and Huntington Health in Pasadena, and joint ventures involving Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center and California Rehabilitation Institute.
During Priselac’s tenure, Cedars-Sinai grew into one of the most respected names in American healthcare, winning numerous awards and recognitions for the quality of its care, patient experience and commitment to the community. The medical center was named to the Honor Roll for the ninth consecutive year and tied for #1 in California and Los Angeles in U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Hospitals 2024-25 ” rankings.
“Tom led Cedars-Sinai through an era of incredible changes in healthcare, adapting with innovation while always staying true to our mission,” said Cedars-Sinai Health System Board Chair Larry Platt. “He has that rare ability to continually look ahead while staying true to our longstanding institutional values.”
Priselac said that one of his favorite phrases is, “Another day, another thousand lives saved.”
“Cedars-Sinai is committed to delivering the highest quality patient care, both on an inpatient and outpatient basis, being a national leader in medical research and medical education and being a significant contributor to the health status of Los Angeles through our community benefit programs,” he said. “Every day is different, and the nature of the work is both incredibly challenging but also incredibly rewarding in terms of wanting to make a difference.
“I’ve been the luckiest guy in the world. There are plenty of great leaders out there in American healthcare. Not everyone gets to be in a place that has the DNA that Cedars-Sinai does to become what the institution’s become over the last 30 years.”
Along his career path, he said he was very fortunate to have a number of important mentors. “The people I worked with at Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh, including Irv Goldberg and Dan Cain, early in my career set me on the path,” he said. “Stuart Marylander, who gave me the opportunity at Cedars-Sinai, would be another.”
Priselac also mentioned Yoshi Honkawa, who served for many years as Vice President of Government and Industry Relations at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and was the 2001 recipient of the Partners in Care Foundation’s Vision & Excellence in Health Care Leadership Award. “He was always constantly challenging you to ask yourself, ‘What are you going to do next? And how are you going to make an impact in the next day, in the next week, in the next month, in the next year?’ It wasn’t the kind of mentorship to tell you what to do or how to do it, but it was incredibly valuable in terms of personal motivation.”
Priselac said the best piece of advice he ever got came from Marylander, the former president of Cedars-Sinai. “I was meeting with him, and I can’t remember the topic, but I was sharing with him my frustration, that I had some great idea that I wanted to try to advance at the medical center, but it wasn’t getting much traction. He sat back in his chair, as he had a habit of doing. He looked at me, and he just got a wry smile and said, ‘Let me give you some free advice. Being right is not enough.’
“That was a great lesson, because leadership is about driving change, but change only happens when you’ve gone through taking the proper steps to help people be willing and want to make change.”
Asked how he tried to lead and inspire his own colleagues, Priselac said, “Different circumstances can require different leadership styles, but in terms of primary style, I guess the phrase ‘servant leadership’ is oftentimes used. I think there’s a lot of merit to that. At the end of the day, people will only let you lead them as far as they want to let you do so.
“Another version of this question is, what are the key characteristics of successful leadership? People always use terms like charisma and being an effective communicator. When people talk about being an effective communicator, I think what they mostly have in mind is outbound communication, what you say as a leader and what you write as a leader.
“In my experience, the most important aspect of communication as a leader is listening. Because in reality, when you’re in a leadership role, there’s a power dynamic, which, more often than not, can get in the way of people being willing to tell you what you need to hear.
“If you’re listening, you’ll take the time to really probe and make sure you understand what the person’s saying. If you don’t take the time to listen, you’re never going to get on the path to trying to establish the right direction forward. I’ve always thought that was important.”
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Board Chair David Kaplan praised Priselac’s ability to thoughtfully listen to and understand the perspectives of many different people. “That is something all of us can learn from,” he said. “In every way, Tom embodies and leads Cedars-Sinai’s values and culture and has been a crucial beacon, showing us all what our institution stands for.”
Throughout his career, Priselac has served in leadership roles of hospital associations at the regional, state, and national level. “That’s a manifestation of two things,” he said. “Number one, my interest in health policy, not just healthcare delivery. Second, my belief that if you’re in a leadership role in health healthcare delivery, you have an obligation to be part of the debate about what the policies are.”
In addition to serving as chair of the California Hospital Association, the American Hospital Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges, Priselac, who is an adjunct professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, has served on the boards of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Southern California Leadership Council.
The Southern California Leadership Council is a cross-multiple industry group of individuals who are in leadership roles for organizations, geographically ranging from Bakersfield to San Diego. It includes past governors of the state, as well as leaders of healthcare, transportation, energy, water, and other major components of the infrastructure in Southern California. The group aims to advance policy positions that make Southern California a better place to live.
“I’m engaged in those activities, because I think that’s part of the role of leaders of any organization, but especially a healthcare organization. People have come to realize that an individual’s health status is impacted only to a relatively small degree by the healthcare they receive. The biggest single determinant is your genetics. The second-biggest determinant is the environment that you live and work in.
“If you’re in a leadership role in healthcare delivery, you need to be engaged in ways that can, hopefully, impact positively the kind of things that have a much bigger impact on people’s health status.”
Priselac lives in Santa Monica with his wife, Jody, a career educator who is retired from a position as an associate dean at the UCLA School of Education. They have two sons and four grandchildren. A multi-sport athlete growing up, he now enjoys endurance sports, especially road cycling, as well as tennis, golf, and skiing.
He’s proud that Cedars-Sinai will be the Official Medical Provider for the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, providing the highest-quality care for athletes, coaches, team personnel and visitors who travel across the world for the competitions in Los Angeles.
Priselac has received numerous awards for his leadership in healthcare and his commitment to improving the health of the underserved. He was previously honored by Partners in Care with the 2005 Vision and Excellence in Healthcare Leadership Award. He also has received the American Hospital Association’s Distinguished Service Award, the Association of American Medical College’s Distinguished Service Member Award, the National Healthcare Leadership Award from the National Center for Healthcare Leadership, B’nai B’rith International’s National Healthcare Leadership Award, and the Charles R. Drew University Board of Trustees Medal of Honor.
Presentation of Priselac’s Lifetime Achievement Award will take place at Partners in Care Foundation’s 25th Annual Vision & Excellence in Health Care Leadership Tribute Dinner on Thursday, June 12, 2025. To learn more about the event, register to attend or sign up as a sponsor, please visit Partners’ 2025 Annual Vision and Excellence in Healthcare Leadership Tribute Dinner.
Partners in Care Foundation, based in San Fernando, is a pioneering nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming the healthcare landscape. With a mission to shape the evolving health system, they focus on co-designing and executing innovative, high-value models of community-based care and developing an alternate health care workforce.
Guided by their vision of “healing with vision, leading with purpose,” Partners in Care Foundation has achieved remarkable success in reducing hospital readmission rates, designing cost-saving models, and improving health outcomes. Their groundbreaking work has set industry best practices, demonstrating the effectiveness of community-based interventions in addressing social determinants of health and enhancing patient well-being.
By implementing these innovative approaches, Partners in Care Foundation is not only promoting health equity but also ensuring that every individual receives the care and support they need to manage their health and improve their quality of life. Their commitment to excellence and their proven track record make them a leader in the field, inspiring others to follow their example and strive for a more equitable and effective healthcare system.
