Remarks to the Faculty and Students
Wayne State University School of Medicine

Irvin D. Reid, President
February 24, 2000

Good afternoon

 I am delighted to be here today to address the faculty, staff and students of the Wayne Sate University School of Medicine.

 I would like to begin my comments by offering my sincere congratulations to Dr. John Crissman, as he moves forward in his new official role as permanent Dean of the Medical School. 

 John Crissman is, in my estimation, the most highly qualified individual for this position. 

I firmly believe that had we held a national search, he would have emerged as the preferred candidate.  I am pleased by the faculty’s overwhelming vote of confidence, and in their understanding of the importance of moving forward with this appointment.  The identification of a strong leader is a crucial step in dealing with the immediate and very pressing challenges of the health care environment.

I have talked with Dean Crissman at great length about his vision for the School, and I know how strongly he feels about academic excellence, and the importance of research, education and service.

His record of achievement in leading the Department of Pathology to levels of excellence speaks to his ability to lead a large and complex organization.

Allow me to put the importance of this into context. 

As you know, the School of Medicine’s success has been largely responsible for the University’s ascension to the ranks of a Carnegie I research institution.  The School’s recent rise from number 25 to  number 22 in NSF ranking among 125 medical schools, is an achievement that we expect to see continued. 

However, we all know that in health care, maintaining the status quo is no longer good enough. Unless we become better organized and more cost effective, unless we innovate and evolve, form new imaginative alliances and explore new opportunities for growth, we may falter. 

Dean Crissman has already begun to undertake major changes in the areas of philanthropy and advancement activities to acquire additional resources to support continued growth.  Other opportunities, such as those created from the Life Sciences Corridor, will also be important.

Our relationships with our community affiliations will need to be nurtured and expanded as well as, in some cases, reduced.  The affiliations are extremely important in helping us achieve our mission in research, teaching and clinical care.

This is true for individuals, groups, or organizations in the health care community.  For example, last year I invited approximately 40-50 private physicians who practice in Detroit to my residence.  It did not take long before I became concerned that unless we as academic health systems do a better job of gaining mutual respect from others in the health care system, such as private and staff physicians, our effectiveness – be it in research, teaching or clinical practice  – would be fundamentally threatened. 

Virtually everyone at this meeting understood the critical role of academic physicians.   It is clear that we share common interests and concerns.  It is equally clear that we need the continued support of practicing physicians.

Therefore I urge you to work together with your physician colleagues across the community to foster a united physician community.

Wayne State University School of Medicine is the only medical school in metropolitan Detroit, and as such, we have an obligation to be, and we should seek to be, an educational resource throughout the region.

As educators we need to assure that the physicians in our community, as well as our own students, have access to the very best educational programs we can provide. 

We must provide the knowledge and training needed to practice high quality medicine in a cost efficient and effective manner.  I believe that through a number of initiatives, Wayne State University will become a more valuable resource to the community and its practicing physicians.

The affiliation of the University with the Detroit Medical Center will continue to be a special one and a vital component of our work within the community.  Obviously, this affiliation is also a fundamental aspect of our education and patient care missions. 

The ongoing re-examination of our mutual ties brought on by adverse conditions in health care nationally will in the end strengthen our affiliation, because it will more clearly define an understanding of our mutual goals.  No doubt both institutions will continue to benefit from this process.  I will continue to meet with Dr. Porter on a quarterly basis to insure that the University’s interests are maintained.  The Dean continues to hold senior V.P. status in the DMC and that is important.

Because we do not own or operate the health care institutions in which we practice, we must develop excellent working relationships and affiliations with a variety of delivery systems throughout the region and hopefully globally as I shall describe later. 

Decisions for program emphasis will be joint ventures with our partners --- the plural in this statement is purposeful but not intended to diminish the importance of our relationship with the DMC nor to disengage our existing affiliation.

It is a reality, however, that the DMC may not be able to provide the breadth or magnitude of support we have benefited from in the past.  This would be understandable.  We will work with them to continue excellence as we can provide it.  But when we perceive needs for our programs can not be met by the DMC we must develop new alternatives to meet these needs. And vice versa.

We have the opportunity of broadening our teaching affiliations in this metropolitan area.  The school has been very successful with this in the past and I understand that we may need to go even further.

We may need to consider programmatic consolidations or reorganizations where efficiencies and quality gains can be achieved. 

Certainly we should look at all opportunities from the perspective of educational, research and clinical care quality rather than tradition or history.  It would be better for Wayne State to lead the change than be changed as a consequence of the priorities of others.

Another area in which I expect there will be great progress is in the area of business and service development. 

There are clearly a number of systems and structures that need to be put in place to allow us to perform our business and service functions more efficiently and effectively. 

And there are a number of new initiatives that will help us build on our strengths and move us into new markets.  The increasing globalization of our society will lead to an increase in the amount of infectious diseases you in the health care community will be faced with. But globalization holds more than just challenges to providers and researchers – it provides us with opportunities to expand our interactions with colleagues from other nations and recruit potential students to our programs.  Dean Crissman, Edson Pontes and I are planning a trip to India later this year to seek out areas for collaboration with medical schools, physicians and hospitals throughout the country, as well as seeking opportunities for recruiting new students. 

We plan similar undertakings in Turkey, South Africa and Brazil.  We currently have similar initiatives already under way with the Kenya program in place here at the Medical School, under the direction of Dr. Ernie Yoder in Internal Medicine.   

Following our recent visit to South Africa, in which assistant Dean Collins represented the School of Medicine, we are seeking to develop a master’s of public health program, in collaboration with partners at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.  This is an exciting initiative which will, when operational, be the first international, fully web-based program of its kind.  The visibility of our institution will be strengthened and enhanced by partnerships of this nature. 

Looking closer to home, Dean Crissman’s intent to develop a single practice plan is a key component that will enhance the ability of faculty to market your services to the community.  This effort to pull 19 separate plans into one cohesive structure will be the biggest entity of its kind in the state, will provide more leverage in marketing your services, and will allow the School to better use its clinical strengths.  He has my full support in this endeavor.

I understand that a large number of factors must be addressed for us to move the School of Medicine forward successfully.

Certainly, the leadership among the Dean and chairs, along with the strength of the faculty, staff and students, are crucial if the School of Medicine is to meet these challenges.  I remain confident that Dean Crissman, with your help and support, will succeed. 

I hope you will understand that although I am committed to doing my part to assist Dean Crissman in this transformation, there are certain things I will not do:

·         I will not hang a black velvet painting of Elvis in my basement

·         Although we share birthdays in February, I will not have my birthday party held at Honest  John’s

·         And I will not wear a purple curly wig ever – even if it is for a noble cause.

Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, faculty and staff—we have an exciting road before us, and I know that we all join together in a most worthy cause.  Spreading the word about the School’s integral role in providing first-rate education to tomorrow’s physicians, cutting-edge research and high-quality care to the community.  In other words - building an extraordinary medical school for the 21^st century.

Thank you for letting me join you here today.