January 9, 1997
UW president appoints search committee for vice president for medical affairs and dean of medicine
University of Washington President Richard L. McCormick today (Jan. 9) announced the appointment of a search committee for the position of vice president for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine.
The nine-person committee will be chaired Dr. Paul B. Robertson, dean of the School of Dentistry, and will have faculty representation from the medical, nursing, and engineering schools, as well as members appointed from the student body and the public.
The person named to the position will succeed Dr. Philip J. Fialkow, who, along with his wife, Helen, died last fall while vacationing in Nepal.
The vice president for medical affairs provides leadership for the UW Academic Medical Center, an entity that includes one of the nation’s top medical schools and its regional medical education, research and clinical patient care activities involving 1,336 full-time faculty along with 698 medical students, more than 650 residents (physicians-in-training), and nearly 400 graduate students in the basic sciences. It also includes overall responsibility for the UW Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center, which the UW has operated for King County since 1967, and associated clinics; and oversight responsibility for the planning and delivery of medical services by University of Washington Physicians.
“The current era is one of great change and unparalleled opportunity in health care delivery and biomedical research, and the University of Washington is a significant contributor across the entire spectrum,” said McCormick. “Extending the legacy left to us by Phil Fialkow, the person selected for this position will have the demonstrated academic and management experience to ensure that the University of Washington remains at the forefront of academic medicine–with all of the benefits that accrue from this to the state, the region and the nation.”
The committee will begin work immediately and hopes to forward its recommendations to McCormick by late spring. McCormick has asked the committee to be as inclusive as possible in considering a diverse array of highly qualified candidates both from within the University and nationally. Candidates must submit personal letters of interest to the committee no later than March 1.
In addition to Robertson, committee members are Margaret Ceis, president of the Harborview Medical Center Board of Trustees, of which she has been a member since 1990; Dr. Wayne Crill, professor and chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics; Engineering Dean Denice Denton; Dr. Margaret Heitkemper, professor of biobehavioral nursing and health systems; Dr. Carlos Pellegrini, professor and chair of the Department of Surgery; Mary Pugh, former chair of the UW Medical Center Board, of which she was a member from 1987 to 1996; Dr. Henry Rosen, professor and associate chair of the Department of Medicine; and Albert Wu, a medical school student.
The UW School of Medicine ranked first among all public medical schools in receipt of federal research funding in 1994-95 and has never ranked less than eighth among all 125 schools in the nation. It also is among the top 10 institutions nationally in technology transfer. Its faculty includes three Nobel laureates, 21 members of the National Academy of Sciences and 28 members of the Institute of Medicine.
The school’s 25-year-old WAMI program of regionalized medical education is a world model for excellence in increasing primary care physicians and broadening educational experience through the efficient use of community resources, including partnerships with other universities in the WAMI states of Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho and educational systems at all levels.
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