Dean Tolar Celebrates Important Milestones and Accomplishments

The great thing about milestones (such as our 130th), is that it gives us a place from which to look both backward and forward. In December we will be publishing a booklet celebrating the accomplishments and innovations of our past, gathered with the help of departmental staff (thank you!). This isn’t just a vanity piece. It has two purposes, one internal and one external. Internally, it celebrates our accomplishments and commemorates our anniversary. Externally, it will be distributed to the deans of medical schools across the country as a timely reminder of our history of excellence. One of the ways we are judged by the outside world is through various systems of ranking. As hard as we are working to make changes to the Medical School that will benefit faculty, staff, and students who are already here, we are also working to change the way we are viewed by the world beyond our campus.

If you are social media savvy (or if you are not, but are willing to help), there is an important opportunity to weigh in on the ranking of our hospitals by responding to a US News News & World Report physician survey in February 2019. To participate, you need to register your Doximity profile by December 2018. Pursuing rankings may seem trivial, but being nationally recognized for our top-tier specialty care helps patients find us and access the extraordinary care we work so hard to provide.

A few accomplishments of note:

• Dr. Clark Chen contributed to KARE 11 article: U of M begins trial for new brain cancer treatment.
• Dr. Hank Balfour’s work described in: Building a better lymphoma vaccine. Nature, 14 November 2018.
• Heather A. Thompson Buum shares her personal insights and experiences in a way that that can help us all practice, in education, and in our own lives: Out of the Mouths of Babes: A Physician Discusses Her Cancer Diagnosis With Her Two Young Children.

We have had a number of celebrations over the past weeks. I would like to highlight three.

• If you were not able to attend the Dean’s Distinguished Research Lecture given by Dr. Sophia Vinogradov and Dr. David Reddish, I strongly urge you to watch the video of it. It is as entertaining as it is informational and inspiring. While you are on that page, also check out our new members of the Wall of Scholarship!
• Each year we have a Service of Gratitude for our anatomical donors. This year, we had over 700 donors, approximately 25% of whom were military veterans. The service is on video. If you don’t have time to watch it in its entirety, I recommend honoring the donors by viewing their photos starting at 40:20 and 1:08:15.
• Five medical school faculty joined the Academies of Excellence last week at an excellently run and enjoyable event. Congratulations for Excellence in Health Research goes to Dr. David Masopust. Congratulations for Excellence in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning goes to Dr. David Power. And congratulations for Excellence in Health Care Practice goes to Drs. Kumar Belani, Dennis Dykstra, and Jon Hallberg. Well done!

These opportunities, milestones, accomplishments, and celebrations demonstrate how we make a difference for ourselves, for others, and for the world around us.