A delegation from the Samsung Child Education and Culture Center and Samsung Welfare Foundation of Korea visited the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center recently to observe early childhood education programs. Their visit included a tour of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and its Junior League Family Resource Center. They are shown here visiting a preschool classroom in the Susan Gray School. Left to right are Aeyeol Yoo, M.D., Foundation vice president and center director, Gichan Choi, general manager, and Jungyoon Choi, manager of the Division of Child Studies.
photo by Melanie Bridges
Both new and familiar faces were announced to fill various leadership posts across the Medical Center this year. Here's a brief recap of some of the highlights.
Directors, deans, etc.
Raymond N. DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., an internationally recognized physician-scientist best known for his work to understand the potential role of aspirin-like drugs to treat and prevent cancers, was named to become director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center on Jan. 1, 2005. DuBois will succeed the center's founding director, Harold L. Moses, M.D., Benjamin F. Byrd Professor of Oncology, who will refocus his attention on his world-renowned research, his activities on the national cancer scene, and his continued service to Vanderbilt-Ingram as an advisor and fund-raiser.
Gordon R. Bernard, M.D., professor of Medicine and chief of the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine was named the assistant vice chancellor for Research. He succeeded Alastair J.J. Wood, M.D., who assumed the post of the newly created position as associate dean for External Affairs. Bernard, who also serves as the medical director of the Institutional Review Board, along with Robin Ginn, R.N., clinical instructor in Nursing, has spent the last four years rebuilding that program as well as focusing the most efficient manner to support clinical research.
Alastair J.J. Wood, M.D., was named to the newly created position of associate dean for External Affairs, , a job that strengthens relationships between the Medical Center and various government agencies, medical student associations and the national media by working with the Office of News & Public Affairs. Wood, a professor of Pharmacology and Medicine, was most recently an assistant vice chancellor for Research.
Allen B. Kaiser, M.D., professor and vice-chair of clinical affairs in the department of Medicine, was named Vanderbilt University Hospital chief of staff and Vanderbilt Medical Center associate chief medical officer, effective Jan. 1.
Scott Rodgers, M.D., a psychiatrist in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, was appointed assistant dean for Medical Student Affairs, effective Jan. 1, 2005. He will replace Bonnie Miller, M.D., who is vacating the position to serve in the new office of Medical Education as associate dean for Undergraduate Medical Education.
Chairs and Chiefs
John G. Byrne, M.D., associate chief and residency program director in the division of Cardiac Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and associate professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, was named the new chairman of the Department of Cardiac Surgery.
Nancy C. Chescheir, M.D., from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was named chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She will assume the role effective Feb. 1, 2005, becoming the first woman to chair a clinical department in the medical school's 129 years. Chescheir, Charles Hendricks Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Medical Alumni Teaching Professor at UNC, succeeds Stephen S. Entman, M.D., who is stepping down after 10 years as chair of the department.
Daniel R. Masys, M.D., an oncologist and a leading biomedical informatics expert who currently directs the biomedical informatics program at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, was named chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics and chief academic officer of the Informatics Center. Masys, a 2001 electee to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, reports to work at Vanderbilt Jan. 4.
Joe B. “Bill” Putnam Jr., M.D., was named the chair of the newly created Department of Thoracic Surgery. Putnam, who hails from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, joined the Vanderbilt faculty in January as Ingram Professor of Surgery.
Scott Baldwin, M.D., was named chief of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology. Baldwin, who joined Vanderbilt in 2002, has served as the Katrina Overall McDonald Professor of Pediatrics and professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, working as vice chair for Laboratory Sciences in Pediatrics. He succeeded Thomas P. Graham Jr., M.D., who stepped down after 33 years of service.
Jason D. Morrow, M.D., was named to take the reins of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology, effective Jan. 1, 2005. He succeeds Dan M. Roden, M.D., William Stokes Professor of Experimental Therapeutics and director of Clinical Pharmacology since 1992, who is facing new challenges as director of the recently established John A. Oates Institute for Experimental Therapeutics.
Richard M. Peek Jr., M.D., has been named chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and Mina Cobb Wallace Associate Professor of Medicine. He succeeds Raymond N. DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., who recently left the position to head the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center as its new center director.