Infectious diseases specialists Karen Bloch, MD, MPH, and David Haas, MD, have been appointed interim leaders of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
The division director, David Aronoff, MD, departed VUMC last month to become chair of the Department of Medicine at Indiana University.
Haas, professor of Medicine (with secondary appointments in Pharmacology and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology), will serve as interim academic chief, and Bloch, professor of Medicine, will serve as the division’s interim clinical chief.
“I am extremely grateful to Drs. Haas and Bloch for stepping up in this time of transition,” said Kimryn
Rathmell, MD, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine. “The entire ID division has conveyed such optimism, I am highly enthusiastic for the coming year. This interim team will be empowered to keep growing and developing the academic and clinical facets of the division. We are just incredibly fortunate to have such a deep bench of strong faculty in the division.”
Bloch, who joined VUMC in 1997, serves as associate director of clinical affairs for the division and medical director of both the Infectious Diseases Clinic and COVID Infusion Clinic. She completed medical school at the University of Virginia followed by residency in internal medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital and fellowship training in infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco. Bloch’s master’s in public health is from the University of California, Berkeley.
Haas completed medical school and residency at Vanderbilt and joined VUMC’s faculty in 1990. His research is focused on the pharmacogenomics of HIV and tuberculosis therapies. He is associate director of the NIH-funded Tennessee Center for AIDS Research and directs its Clinical Sciences Core. Haas also leads the Vanderbilt Therapeutics Clinical Research Site for the worldwide NIH-funded AIDS Clinical Trials Group.
Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD, director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology, is leading a search for a permanent director of Infectious Diseases.
