From the executive vice president

Another word

sanfillipio

To all those words like commitment, compassion, and curiosity that are highlighted in this book, let me add one more: teamwork.

Emory University School of Medicine is a key component of Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center(WHSC), which also includes schools of public health and nursing, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory Winship Cancer Institute, and Emory Healthcare, the largest, most comprehensive health system in the state, with facilities listed on the next page. 

Without the medical school’s context as part of the WHSC, intermeshed with all those other components, the whole would be highly diminished. The medical school, for example, is at the heart of our efforts to integrate teaching and research with care in ways that maximize benefit to patients; to bridge scientists from various disciplines, both within and outside Emory; to devise and implement new strategies to enhance quality and safety of care in our hospitals and clinics; and to apply new solutions to old problems like those under consideration in ongoing discussions of health care reform.

In recent months, the WHSC has added two new initiatives to a growing list of comprehensive centers already in existence at Emory, in cancer, neurosciences, transplant, and heart and vascular disease.

The new Emory Center for Critical Care, charged with standardizing and harmonizing care across all of Emory’s ICUs, encompasses a team ranging from physicians and nurses to respiratory therapists, pharmacists, nutritionists, and social workers. And the Center for Comprehensive Informatics aggregates expertise from several disciplines across the university and in partnership with Georgia Tech, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Grady Memorial Hospital, CDC, and others. 

Clearly, we all are part of a team, with an exciting vision and noble cause. Congratulations to Dean Tom Lawley and to the medical school for its vital contributions to the WHSC as a whole.

Fred Sanfilippo, MD, PhD

Executive VP for Health Affairs
CEO, Woodruff Health Sciences Center

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