Award honors lifelong leadership in family medicine, public health
Nov. 25, 2025, David Mitchell—Before he started his second career as a medical director, Arvind Goyal, MD, MPH, MBA, CPE, FAAFP, FACPM, already had received his first lifetime achievement award for advocacy work in his community.
“I want to be remembered for being a family physician and public health physician on the ground,” said Goyal, who received the AAFP Public Health Award in October during the Congress of Delegates in Anaheim, Calif. “It’s been a tremendous journey for me. I’m no different from the thousands of people here, but life has offered many opportunities to do well, not just for me but the communities I’ve served. Prevention has been the focus. Every day we’re able to make difference, and you can measure it.”
For the past 13 years, Goyal has been the medical director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, where he is responsible for clinical policies and oversight of programs like Illinois Medicaid, which has more than 3.5 million beneficiaries in his state, and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
“There’s so much to do,” said Goyal, 76. “It keeps you engaged—if you can get all meetings straight.”
Take, for example, a meeting Goyal helped plan this fall involving the University of Illinois and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. The focus of the event, which included CME and drew 50 medical and academic leaders from around the state, was quality and access regarding complex surgical cases.
“These are entities that serve the same population we serve,” Goyal said. “Addressing things like quality and access makes a difference in a community because if you have access but not quality you can measure, that’s a negative. If you have quality but not access, that’s injustice of the highest degree.”
In addition to his role in ensuring availability and quality of care delivered through statewide health plans, Goyal influenced national health policy as a fixture in the AMA House of Delegates for two decades, serving as a delegate for both the American Association of Public Health Physicians and the Illinois State Medical Society, two organizations he also served as president.
Goyal also has served as president or chair of several other organizations, including the National Medicaid Medical Directors Network, the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, the Chicago Medical Society, the Family Health Foundation of Illinois, the Illinois State Medical Licensing Board and Northwest Community Hospital Medical Staff (where he served as president of the organization and chair of its Family Medicine Department).
“My goal was to learn as much as I could from peers,” he said. “For each of those roles, I had at least one mentor who brought me in. When you go into it, you’re not thinking about leadership. Those opportunities are provided by peers who recognize what you contribute.
Streamlined nomination process now open
A new application process makes it easier to nominate yourself or a colleague for the Public Health Award and other AAFP recognitions.
"The president of an organization does not make policy. Policy is made by members directly through delegates or whatever system is in place. The president’s job is to articulate and implement policy, and when term is over, get out of way. If you can stay engaged and focused on things you really value, that fulfills your long-term goal of learning, contributing, advocating and working with others.”
Family medicine provided broad training
Goyal started a residency in internal medicine but realized he wanted to do more.
“It limited my ability to take care of women and children,” he said. “It limited my ability to go outside my internal medicine bubble. If it was a surgical case, they wouldn’t let me touch it.”
Goyal switched to family medicine, becoming the first resident in a new program at Cook County Hospital.
“There were three attendings, and I was the only resident for the first six months,” Goyal said. “Fifty deliveries were required for family medicine residency. It took me six days at Cook County. I was on call every third night and took extra call.”
Goyal graduated from the program in 1975. It grew quickly to 36 residents assigned to several community clinics.
“It’s a great program,” he said. “It prepared me to think globally about all body systems and patients of all ages. I didn’t have to do everything I learned, but I was able to decide what my core interests and competencies were. I had the opportunity to work in the jail, a rehab center, nursing home, acute care hospital and see patients in their homes. In addition, they allowed me to do a public health elective at the University of Illinois.”
‘Be part of the community’
Goyal opened his own practice in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, in 1979 and stayed for 30 years.
“If you are a physician, communities are so eager to help you and make you part of it,” he said. “There were five generations of people in my practice. I met patients when and where they needed me. I can’t tell you how many patient and family birthdays, weddings and funerals I still go to, and I’ve been out of clinical practice for 15 years.”
Goyal met some of his patients while attending city council meetings. Other families came to his practice by word of mouth, or after he had volunteered to read to kindergarten students, talk about tobacco prevention to a class in local schools, or volunteer to speak on healthy aging at a seniors center.
Patients could call him after hours and on weekends, and often did. Once, he was on a weeklong trip to an AAFP meeting and had a colleague covering his practice. That wasn’t good enough for some, including a patient suffering chest pain who declined the other doctor’s recommendation to visit the emergency room. Instead, he waited to hear directly from Goyal.
“He didn’t go because he didn’t know and trust my covering doctor,” said Goyal, who noted the patient had life-saving bypass surgery after he returned. “In order for you to be trustworthy and known, you need to be part of the community.”
Seeking new challenges
The City of Rolling Meadows and its chamber of commerce gave Goyal a lifetime achievement award in 2006. Three years later, the city issued a proclamation honoring 30 years of service to its residents, and soon thereafter he sold his practice.
For two years, Goyal was the chief medical officer and medical director for a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The FQHC cared for more than 22,000 patients and was a teaching site for medical students and family medicine residents.
It also was 300 miles from home.
Goyal worked four days a week in Iowa and spent three days in Illinois. The change allowed him to help care for his mother and spend more time with his grandchildren. He also earned his MBA. In 2012, he took his current role with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
His honors include service and leadership awards from the AMA, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the Rotary Club. He was honored as Illinois’ Family Physician of the Year by Illinois AFP in 2001. In 2021, he received his second lifetime achievement award, this one from the Indian American Medical Association, an organization of physicians, fellows, residents and medical students of Indian origin.
Throughout his career, Goyal has filled numerous teaching roles. He served as an attending physician for decades at three different medical centers. In 1988, he started as a clinical assistant professor at the Rosalind Franklin University School of Medicine and Science, where he later became a clinical associate professor and continues to conduct grand rounds and teach courses on subjects like ethics, professionalism and prevention.
The septuagenarian has no plans to retire.
“As long as I feel that I’m doing something good for my profession and my community, and as long as God doesn’t disable me, I will continue to work,” he said.