Beth A. Paterniti, Interim Administrator and Health Officer of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County (DOH-Orange), welcomes Asim Jani, M.D., M.P.H. as the department’s new Medical Director, Communicable Diseases. His first day on the job was June 30, 2022.
“We are excited to have Dr. Jani rejoin the DOH-Orange Team,” said Interim Administrator and Health Officer Beth Paterniti. “He brings with him organizational leadership skills as well as a wealth of experience in clinical medicine, infectious diseases, epidemiology and several years of state and local Florida Department of Health experience to the position.”
“I’m very grateful to rejoin the team at DOH-Orange, having started here as a newly minted Infectious Diseases physician back in 1995,” stated Dr. Asim Jani. “Over the last 25 years, I’ve enjoyed a career of service, caring for patients in hospitals, clinics, and public health in Central Florida, facilitating the improvement of care delivery in communities and teaching physicians and nurses. My decade at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as a Commissioned Corps Medical Officer in the US Public Health Service reinforced my deep respect for professionalism, scientific rigor and integrity as critical to the process of health protection. While I have seen firsthand the value of treating patients for infections, the most important thing is to follow the 2000-year-old wisdom of Hippocrates, who said ‘prevention is better than cure’. Whether it’s screening and early detection of treatable diseases, daily exercise, healthy diets, dental hygiene, or vaccines to prevent life-threatening infections and epidemics, disease prevention is paramount. Improving the health of any community takes a lot of collaboration, which is one of the core values for the DOH-Orange, in addition to excellence, innovation, accountability and responsiveness. And it’s this great recipe for success that is at the heart of what the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us. In fact, a key message from a recent book on lessons learned from the pandemic is that people should listen to the experts and experts should listen to the people. I hope my role as Medical Director will be to listen and learn and help inform, educate, and guide people in Central Florida and beyond, to thrive and live healthier lives.”
Dr. Jani brings 30 years of progressive leadership experience to DOH-Orange in the diverse areas of public health practice; primary care and clinical infectious diseases; medical epidemiology (emerging infections/population health); and workforce development. His board specialty areas include Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and Public Health/General Preventive Medicine.
Since 2020, Dr. Jani has served in the capacity of Medical Director, Division of Disease Control and Health Protection for the Florida Department of Health. Besides his public health work experience, Dr. Jani has worked in the private sector. From 2016 to 2020, he served as Hospital Epidemiologist on the Corporate Quality and Patient Safety team at Orlando Health where he focused on quality improvement, infection prevention, emerging infections, health system pandemic preparedness, public health/health care collaboration, and patient safety.
He was trained as a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officer and later became the Director of the Preventive Medicine residency program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2011 to 2015. His work at the CDC involved outbreak investigation, surveillance system strengthening, strategic planning, program oversight, innovation, and organizational leadership.
Dr. Jani earned his bachelor’s degree, master’s in Public Health, and medical degree from the University of South Florida (USF) Morsani Colleges of Medicine and Public Health. He completed his Internal Medicine residency training at Orlando Regional Medical Center, followed by his infectious diseases training at USF.
Currently, Dr. Jani is an adjunct associate professor at the Florida State University College of Medicine in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine. Previously, he has held many adjunct academic appointments in Florida and Georgia.
He is an invited speaker, having given more than 250 major presentations during his career, and contributed over 30 abstracts, peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and other scholarly products.
