Joseph Zanga, M.D., a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Pediatricians (acpeds.org), is a specialist in pediatrics and the retired Chief of Pediatrics for Columbus Regional Health/Columbus Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Georgia. Dr. Zanga was the Distinguished Chair and Assistant Dean in Primary Care at Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. He also served as Chair of Pediatrics at Loyola in Chicago, and Vice Chair at Louisiana State University (LSU) Medical Center, and as Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at both LSU and Tulane University.
For a major portion of his career (19 years), Dr. Zanga served as an Associate Professor, then Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine, at Virginia Commonwealth University/Medical College of Virginia. During that time he was Chair of the Division of General Pediatrics and Emergency Care, Director of the Central Virginia Injury Prevention Center, and Director of the Child Protection Committee.
Dr. Zanga is author or co-author of over 30 articles, 15 AAP publications, 20 book chapters and monographs, and numerous abstracts, reports and letters to medical journals. Until recently he served as a reviewer for Pediatrics, Journal of Pediatrics, Ambulatory Pediatrics, Journal of Medical Ethics, and still serves as reviewer for the Journal of Palliative Care Medicine and The Linacre Quarterly. He was a member of the Board of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health and served an extended term on the National Advisory Council of the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse Medical School. His most recent completed appointment outside the Columbus community was to the National Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development of the NIH.
During his term as President of the AAP, Dr. Zanga focused on several major issues, including preprofessional education, workforce, child abuse and other violence prevention, substance abuse prevention, children and the media, sexually transmitted infections/adolescent health, and financial access to health care for all children. He also promoted the importance of family for the health and well-being of children. He continued with many of these as founding President of the American College of Pediatricians.
Married to Christine for 50 years, Dr. and Mrs. Zanga are parents to Catherine, a Charlotte NC, attorney (deceased 2014), and Joseph, Jr., a Medicine/Psychiatry faculty member at Duke and the Durham VA. They are also grandparents to four granddaughters and one grandson.
