Dr. Tolúwalàṣé (Laṣé) Ajayi, MD FAAP, is a fellowship-trained palliative care physician and pediatrician. She currently is the medical director of adult palliative medicine at Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego; serves as the Director of Diversity Initiatives and Clinical Research at the Scripps Research Translational Institute; and is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at UC San Diego and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego where she works as a hospitalist and pediatric palliative medicine physician.
Dr. Ajayi is a national leader in academic hospice and palliative medicine where she co-chairs the Academic Palliative Medicine Committee for the AAHPM and serves as co-editor-in-chief of the Academy’s peer-reviewed HPM-FAST and HPM-PASS continuing education tools and is on the research committee. She is a member of the Pediatric Operations Task Force of the All of Us Research Program with the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Ajayi has a long history of leadership in policy-making and organized medicine at the American Academy of Pediatrics and is an AAP delegate to the American Medical Association where she advocates for addressing health disparities in marginalized populations, the needs of children and those with serious illness. Dr. Ajayi is the Chair of the Council on Medical Services of the California Medical Association where she is integrally involved in that organization’s policy making around ensuring the sustainability and equity in the practice of medicine.