Quarterly News -- Fall
Mark Cullen, MD reports to you the quarterly news for Fall.
Mark Cullen, MD
As we approach the holiday season the Division has both a great deal to be thankful for, and much to anticipate in the New Year. Looking back, the year has witnessed unprecedented growth throughout our ranks. Our faculty has swelled to over 80, including 10 full professors. True to our name, we now represent almost a dozen medical specialties and subspecialties, including not only internal medicine and family medicine, but also geriatrics, occupational health, palliative care, pediatrics, neurology, endocrinology, infectious disease. We have lawyers, businesspersons, statisticians as well as epidemiologists. And in case you were hoping to memorize the list and be done with it once and for all, another 4 faculty searches are opening before Christmas, even as we hire more CEs in almost every category! So instead check out the new organizational chart pulled together to support our ongoing Divisional review.
On the research side, the year has been filled with unprecedented successes as well. The Quantitative Sciences Unit (QSU) out at 1070 Arastradero continues to fuel fundable applications from our faculty as well as colleagues throughout the DoM, and now serve as host on the first Tuesday of every month at 4:00 p.m. to one of our two regular DGMD research meetings—the other is weekly, Thursday at 4:00 p.m. in MSOB. While it may be premature to boast, Divisional PI’s appear to be bucking the national trend with extraordinary scores and funding despite the rising hurdles.
But perhaps the most remarkable changes—almost revolutionary for Stanford-- continue on the clinical practice side. Palliative Care has opened a major new program in the Cancer Center, even as demand for inpatient services grow in recognition of the critical role the team plays in planning and supporting clinical care pathways for the system’s sickest patients. The Ambulatory Intensive Care Unit (A-ICU), recently dubbed Stanford Coordinated Care, stands in readiness for its inauguration in April as first Alan Glaseroff and shortly thereafter Ann Lindsay join our ranks to take on this herculean challenge. After long discussion we are closing in on a staffing and practice model to serve high need and executive patients, which we expect to open its doors soon as well. And last but hardly least, we continue the full-court press to recruit a new primary care “architect” to work with Dr. Milstein and the Clinical Excellence Research Center (CERC) to develop a new model primary care practice.
So as I am wont to advise (but it remains true as ever): Stay tuned!