Ringing in 2023
As the holidays approach and the year comes to a close, I would like to share my gratitude and appreciation for all that each and every one of you has contributed to the department during 2022. While it has been a year of ongoing challenges, I am proud of the amazing things we have accomplished together.
Our faculty were awarded 968 grants (new, supplemental, and renewals) totaling $304,143,358.
We had nearly 260,000 inpatient encounters and over 338,000 outpatient encounters at our over 100 clinics where procedures take place.
Since the start of the pandemic, we have been national and international leaders in understanding the natural history, immunological responses, and serologic diagnostics of COVID-19, and continue to lead with Phase 3 vaccine trials, studies in long COVID, and research into how well COVID-19 vaccines protect against infection in the community.
We had another wonderful and historic match this year, and continued our work to recruit a more diverse class, as well as increase our recruitment of physician-scientists.
This class is 54% women and it is also the most diverse group yet. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of the Categorical track is URM and 18% of the Primary Care track. This is incredible progress for our program that is becoming more and more diverse. We also matched 2 visiting scholars into our program, and we have 4 PhDs and 5 who have identified as future physician-scientists.
Department faculty, trainees, students and staff received over 250 honors, teaching awards and special appointments, and we presented our inaugural Gender Equity Awards this year, recognizing and celebrating individuals who are dedicated to supporting the success of women and gender minorities.
The inaugural recipients were Dr. Michi Shinohara (Dermatology), who received the inaugural Gender Equity Mentorship Award, and Dr. Stephanie Page (Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition) and our Internal Medicine Residency Staff, who received the inaugural Gender Equity Trailblazer Awards.
Recruitment
Building on the transformative energy of the recent restructure of our adult oncology program and formation of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, we are uniting our two current academic Divisions of Hematology and Medical Oncology to form a joint Hematology/Oncology Division at UW and are currently recruiting for a leader to head this new division.
Two new division heads – Dr. Geetanjali Chander (General Internal Medicine) and Dr. Tomas Mustelin (Rheumatology) – started this past year and we are currently recruiting for division heads in Cardiology and Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine.
Drs. Neha Deshpande and Jennifer Wright are our new site director and clerkship director for Medicine Student Programs. They took the helm from Dr. Doug Paauw, who had been the director of student teaching for the Department of Medicine since 1992.
We hired Marisa Benich as our new division administrator in Nephrology, Rosa Pazhouh as our new division administrator in Gastroenterology and Dana Panteleeff and Emily Lamont joined our central staff to run operations.
To optimize our clinical activity and delivery of care, we created two new positions. Dr. Robb MacLellan is our new Executive Vice Chair and Alyssa Williamson is our new senior director of clinical programs.
To help implement a key priority to cultivate a nurturing and inclusive environment, we appointed Dr. David Horne as our new associate chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and hired Sean Greenlee as our program manager for DEI.
Strategic Plan
I would especially like to call your attention to the ongoing work in the department around the implementation of our strategic plan, which is our north star and delineates our major priorities, deliverables, and strategies for the next 5 years.
The strategic plan outlined four Key Result Areas (KRAs) that informed the creation of six workgroups tasked with creating strategies and deliverables that will yield outcomes related to each KRA. Each workgroup has dyad leads and a team of members from various groups within the department.
At this stage, the six workgroups have identified 33 year 1 deliverables to help achieve outcomes related to our KRAs. Progress on all workgroup deliverables are available on our intranet.
A special thanks to the outstanding workgroup leads, as well as to the workgroup members who have volunteered significant amounts of their precious time to advance the department’s priorities.
The Year Ahead
The Department of Medicine is celebrating our 75th anniversary in 2023! To honor this anniversary, we will be publishing a book that highlights our achievements over the last 75 years, and we are planning a series of events and articles that will feature our work and our people throughout the year.
Thank you
Congratulations on your accomplishments and thank you for all your hard work. We will continue to move forward and build a stronger department, together. I look forward to it.