Former Health Commissioner, MMA Member Passes Away

August 13, 2026

Ed Ehlinger, MD, MSPH, 80, the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health during the Gov. Mark Dayton administration, passed away on August 5, after a battle with melanoma. 

Ehlinger was quite active with the MMA over the years, first joining in 2003. Most recently, he served on the MMA Foundation Board of Directors. He also volunteered on the MMA Committee on Public Health, and served as a delegate in the former MMA House of Delegates. He was board certified in internal medicine and pediatrics. 

“Ed Ehlinger inspired physicians to see patients in context, public health leaders to view communities as partners, and policymakers to treat equity as a moral obligation,” said George Schoephoerster, MD, who served on the MMA Foundation with Ehlinger. “His life’s work embodies medicine’s highest ideals: advancing both the art and science of medicine in service to the betterment of public health. His legacy endures in the programs he built, the people he mentored, and his belief that medicine and public health are two expressions of the same calling.” 

Along with his work as health commissioner, Ehlinger served as director of Personal Health Services for the Minneapolis Health Department; head of the University of Minnesota’s Boynton Health Service; president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials; and acting chair of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant and Maternal Mortality.