Christian M. Pettker

Chris Pettker is chair and department executive officer of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. Pettker is a maternal-fetal medicine specialist with specific interest in clinical quality and patient safety in both women’s health and general healthcare. A native Californian, he studied architecture at Princeton University, followed by medical school and OBGYN residency at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York. He spent 20 years at Yale before coming to Iowa, beginning with his MFM fellowship and transitioning to faculty and Professor. He helped build and oversee Yale’s comprehensive obstetric patient safety and quality program, one of the first in the country to demonstrate improvements patient care by standardizing treatment methods, creating a high reliability culture, and structuring communication and collaboration between clinicians and departments. With the role of Associate Chief Quality Officer and Chief Patient Safety Officer, he helped lead a 5-hospital, 2700-bed health system in its safety and quality improvement efforts (winner of the 2021 American Hospital Association Quest for Quality Prize) and that of Yale New Haven Hospital, a 2019-2020 US News and World Report “Honor Roll” hospital. He is a practicing clinician with a focus on labor and birth and complicated pregnancies. His research interests focus on patient safety and healthcare quality. While at Yale he was principal investigator at Yale for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Maternal Fetal Medicine Unit Network. He is the co-author on numerous practice guidelines for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Dr. Pettker’s work is deeply rooted in developing teams and teamwork capabilities along with technical and social approaches to major healthcare problems.