Melinda Estes, MD

Melinda L. Estes is president/CEO of Saint Luke’s Health System in the greater Kansas City, Mo., metro area. Saint Luke’s, with its 16 hospitals and campuses in the metro and surrounding rural communities, is the area’s third-largest private employer. Dr. Estes currently serves as the immediate past chair of the American Hospital Association’s Board of Trustees. As a board-certified neurologist and neuropathologist, she is a champion of strengthening physician engagement. In 2018, she served as the chair of the taskforce that created the AHA Physician Alliance. Dr. Estes is a past member of the AHA Metropolitan Hospital Council, the AHA Committee on Health Professions and the AHA’s Advisory Committee on Health Care Reform. In 2020, Modern Healthcare named her one of its “50 Most Influential Clinical Executives” and as one of its “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare.” In 2019, she was named to Becker’s Healthcare’s CEO Advisory Board, and she has consistently been named to Becker’s Hospital Review’s list of “Physician Leaders to Know” since 2012.