Long-Term Faculty Member, Dr. David Stewart Steps Down as Chair of Family & Community Medicine at UM School of Medicine; Senior Associate Dean Dr. Esa Matius Davis Named Interim Chair

The University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) has announced that David L. Stewart, MD, MPH, will step down from his role as Chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine, concluding an extraordinary 18-year tenure marked by growth and dedication to patient care and education. As Chair, he has worked closely with UMSOM Deans Donald E. Wilson, MD, E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, and most recently Mark T. Gladwin, MD, to implement the vision for Family Practice at UMSOM. Dr. Stewart is not fully retiring; he will remain engaged with the aspects of his career he most enjoys: clinical practice and teaching.

At the same time, Dean Gladwin announced that Esa Matius Davis, MD, MPH, FAAFP—a nationally recognized leader in family medicine, population health, and women’s health—will assume the role of Interim Department Chair.

They will begin their new roles effective immediately.

Dr. David Stewart: A Legacy of Patient Care

Dr. Stewart has been a prominent figure in both academic leadership and community medicine and is widely known for the comprehensive care and compassion he shows for his patients. His clinical expertise in family practice covers a wide range of areas in primary care. He enjoys caring for a diverse population in urban as well as rural environments. Such vision has allowed the Department to form lasting and productive relationships with communities throughout Maryland. His expertise in family medicine has helped the School of Medicine and the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) advance their missions related to primary care. 

Dr. Stewart joined UMSOM in 1987 and became Chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine in 2007. During his tenure, the department grew in every area–establishing a required curriculum in family practice for medical students, increasing the number of physician faculty to 25, and adding advanced practice providers. He expanded the Family Medicine Residency Program to 30 residents, the largest in Maryland.

Dr. Stewart also advanced the Department’s primary care sports medicine fellowship and built a robust research division that advanced scholarship in chronic disease prevention and treatment, women’s health, and smoking cessation. He grew the Department’s clinical enterprise to include three sites, providing primary care access for over 30,000 visits per year.

Most recently, he secured a $750,000 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) for the School of Medicine’s new rural residency track on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. In 2024, he helped launch the Rural Health Equity and Access Longitudinal Elective (R-HEALE) supported by $1.4 million in State, University, and philanthropic funding. The program supports medical students with didactic, clinical, and research experiences in rural Eastern Shore locations.

“Dr. Stewart’s leadership and unwavering commitment to patient care and mentorship have left an indelible mark on the School of Medicine and, more importantly, on the broader Maryland community,” said Dean Gladwin, who is also the Vice President for Medical Affairs, University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean at UMSOM. “I am also deeply appreciative that David will continue to serve as a mentor to both me and Dr. Davis as we grow our Family Medicine service line. He is one of the most value driven leaders I have been blessed to work with. I admire his steadfast commitment to caring for his patients, as he has communicated his top priority is not to retire, but to continue to serve his patients in his outpatient practice.”

Dr. Stewart led the Department to be recognized by U.S. News & World Report. He has received several institutional honors for teaching and mentorship. He has been listed among Baltimore Magazine’s Top Doctors, with an overflowing, highly sought after primary care practice. His work in rural health and primary care research has been featured in national forums such as the North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG). He continues to support community partnerships which improve education, clinical care, and research. 

He earned his MD from Case Western Reserve University (1982), and completed his residency at University Hospitals of Cleveland (1985). He also holds a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in clinical preventive medicine, and is board-certified by the American Board of Family Medicine.

"Dr. Stewart has dedicated his career to improving the health of this community,” said Bert W. O'Malley, MD, President of the UMMC and Executive Vice President of the Academic Health Division for the University of Maryland Medical System. “He has touched countless lives and built a legacy of care and compassion that will endure as he transitions to the next phase of his service. I’m pleased to continue working with Dr. Davis, another strong leader, who is fiercely committed to UMMC's and UMSOM’s shared clinical, innovation, and population health goals."

Dr. Esa Davis: A Visionary Leader

Dr. Esa Davis is a nationally recognized leader in family practice, population and women’s health. In 2023, she was appointed the Inaugural Associate Vice President for Community Health at UMB and Professor of Family & Community Medicine and Senior Associate Dean for Population Health and Community Medicine at UMSOM. In 2025, she was elected as a member of the prestigious National Academy of Medicine for her trailblazing work in advancing women’s health through epidemiological studies on adverse maternal health outcomes and her landmark clinical trials informing practice guidelines for improving obesity and diabetes-related maternal health outcomes.

Dr. Davis is a board-certified family physician with more than 20 years of clinical expertise in managing acute and chronic conditions in children and adults. She has practiced the full scope of family medicine in variety of settings. In addition to her clinical work, she is a widely published, NIH-funded researcher whose efforts center on improving obesity and cardiovascular related maternal and child health outcomes. She also conducts comparative effectiveness trials to examine strategies to improve maternal health outcomes as well as strategies to treat tobacco use disorder in hospitalized and presurgical patients.

Much of her work has focused on understanding the perinatal factors that influence obesity and long-term cardiovascular health in women. She has contributed significantly to the field by investigating cultural and behavioral influences that shape health outcomes, as well as the complex factors that have led to persistent differences in obesity among women across racial and socioeconomic lines.

Dr. Davis currently serves as Vice Chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), where she plays a pivotal role developing preventive services recommendations for the US population, especially regarding women’s health issues such as screening for osteoporosis and pregnancy hypertensive disorders, and interventions to support breastfeeding.

She has led landmark clinical trials, including the influential Comparison of Two Screening Strategies for Gestational Diabetes (GDM2) Trial, which shaped national practices for gestational diabetes screening. Her current NIH-funded clinical trials include the Heart Health Doula Trial, which tests an intervention to reduce postpartum hypertension in patients with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. She is a co-investigator of REBIRTH, a multicenter trial evaluating a bromocriptine intervention to address peripartum cardiomyopathy. She is also a co-investigator of the ENRICH Trial, a multicenter study using an enhanced family home visitation model to improve maternal and child cardiovascular health outcomes.

In addition to her research leadership, she is the Lead Strategist for Health Initiatives at the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing and is the PI and program director of the Transforming Biomedical Research and Academic Faculty Through Leadership, Opportunity Training and Mentorship (TRANSFORM) program, an NIH-funded national leadership development program to mentor and advance mid-career faculty into senior leadership roles.

"We are very fortunate to have Dr. Davis to serve as our new Interim Chair of Family & Community Medicine,” said Dean Gladwin. “She brings extraordinary vision and expertise to this role. Her widely recognized work in women’s and population health, combined with her leadership in clinical research and community engagement, will propel our Department into a new era of innovation and value-based patient care. We are excited to see how her strategic initiatives will promote value-based care in family practice improving health outcomes for communities across Maryland and beyond.”

Dr. Davis is spearheading the development of the Mondawmin Community Health Village—a 17,000-square-foot facility scheduled to open in 2026—that will provide comprehensive primary and dental care, cancer prevention and treatment services, and lab and pharmacy services to residents of West Baltimore. She will continue the Family & Community Medicine department’s legacy of engaging widely with underserved communities. She will lead the department of Family & Community Medicine in its bold new efforts to expand the Family Medicine Residency program and educational capacity for medical students on the rural Eastern Shore. She will also expand primary care into Baltimore City communities via partnerships with Federally Qualified Health Centers, and by establishing community health hubs within churches and community centers. In addition, she plans to grow the Department’s research program and advance value-based care and clinical models that will expand access to primary care and preventive services. 

Dr. Davis earned her medical degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey—New Jersey Medical School, before completing a Family Medicine residency at Overlook Hospital, New Jersey. She then earned an MPH in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health while completing a post-doctoral fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program Research Fellowship and a General Internal Medicine and National Research Service Award Fellowship, both from Johns Hopkins University. She was also a Robert Wood Johnson Harold Amos Medical Faculty Scholar.