David Wright was named CFO of America Hears (Bristol, Pennsylvania). Previously, Wright was a partner with Vested Capital Partners of New York. America Hears makes premium digital hearing aids.

Nancy Nielsen, MD, PhD, a board-certified internist from Buffalo, New York, was inaugurated as the 163rd president of the American Medical Association (AMA; Chicago). Nielsen began her leadership role with the AMA in 2000, serving four consecutive annual terms as speaker of the House of Delegates, the AMA policy-setting body, and three consecutive annual terms as vice-speaker. She has been an active contributor to organized medicine's policy discussions and has held several positions in the AMA, including the Council on Scientific Affairs. In related AMA news: James Rohack, MD, a cardiologist from Bryan, Texas, was named president-elect of the association. Following a year-long term as president-elect, Rohack will assume the AMA presidency in June 2009. His annual term as president will be followed by an additional annual term as immediate past president ending in June 2010. He served a one-year term as chair of the AMA Board of Trustees in 2004-2005. He was elected to a final four-year term in 2005. Jeremy Lazarus, MD, a Denver psychiatrist, was elected to his second consecutive annual term as speaker of the AMA House of Delegates. Andrew Gurman, MD, a Pennsylvania orthopedic hand surgeon, was elected to his second consecutive term as vice speaker of the House of Delegates.

Deborah DeFilippo was named CFO of FlowCardia (Sunnyvale, California). Most recently, DeFilippo was VP/CFO of business development for the Guidant Cardiac Surgery business. FlowCardia makes endovascular devices for coronary and peripheral chronic total occlusion recanalization.

Bryan Hebert was named senior VP of business development of Healthation (Darien, Illinois). Previously, Hebert was senior director of product management at Healthedge. Healthation also reported the appointment of Robert Worobow as senior VP of human resources and Stephen Piazza as VP of architecture. Worobow previously was president of RRW & Associates and Piazza was executive director of engineering for Trizetto's MyHealthbank products. Healthation is a healthcare technology company helping payers and administrators improve business performance with rules-based benefits management and transaction processing solutions.

Louise Mawhinney was named senior VP/CFO of Ikonisys (New Haven, Connecticut). She previously was senior VP/CFO of Helicos BioSciences. Ikonisys specializes in cancer diagnosis and genetic disorder screening.

Mark Carol, MD, was named chief medical officer of Xoft (Sunnyvale, California). He previously served as a consulting medical director for the company. Xoft makes the Axxent electric brachytherapy system that delivers localized, non-radioactive, isotope-free radiation treatment in minimally-shielded clinical settings.