Richard P. Shannon, MD serves as the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Duke University Health System. In this role, Shannon works in partnership with our Nurse, Physician and Administrator triads to oversee governance, strategy and operational outcomes for our comprehensive centers of excellence, including Neurosciences, Heart, Oncology and Musculoskeletal.

As Chief Quality Officer for Duke Health, Shannon is responsible for the overall direction, leadership and operational management of the quality and safety programs of Duke Health, and provides leadership in strengthening a quality culture where everyone is engaged and respected.

Shannon received his BA from Princeton University and his MD from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He completed his training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, his cardiovascular training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was the Francis Weld Peabody Fellow and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School before becoming the Claude R. Joyner Professor of Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine.

Prior to joining Duke Health, he served as executive vice president for health affairs at the University of Virginia, where he worked with faculty and staff to transform the UVA Health System into the premier health care provider in Virginia. Shannon has also served as the Frank Wister Thomas Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and as Chair of the Department of Medicine at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. Shannon has received numerous teaching awards from Harvard Medical School, Drexel University College of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Shannon’s investigative interests are in the areas of myocardial metabolism and heart failure, specifically the role of energetics in the progression of heart failure. Shannon’s lab was the first to discover the beneficial CV actions of incretins which formed the basis for Ventrigen, LLC, a company designed to develop incretins for the use in treating heart failure.

Shannon's pioneering work in patient safety is chronicled in the chapter “First, Do No Harm” in Charles Kenney’s The Best Practice - How the New Quality Movement is Transforming Medicine. His innovative work also has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, on CNN and CNBC news segments, and on ABC's "20/20", and was a centerpiece for the PBS report entitled "Remaking American Medicine." 

Shannon is an elected member of honorary organizations, including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and served as a senior fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently is a teaching fellow for the Institute of Healthcare Improvement. He is a Director of the National Institutes of Health, Clinical Center Research Hospital Board; and a member of the Boards of Directors of the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., where he chairs the Quality Health Improvement Committee.