Tisher to step down as medical dean next year

The dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine, Dr. C. Craig Tisher, has announced that he plans to step down from his position during the next academic year.

A search committee charged with identifying Tisher's successor should be in place in July, according to Dr. Douglas J. Barrett, UF senior vice president for health affairs. Tisher will continue to serve until a new dean comes on board, most likely next summer.

Plans call for Tisher to lead the college through an exhaustive review and reaccreditation of its educational programs, an activity that occurs once every seven years and concludes next February.

"Dr. Tisher has been a superb dean, and we're fortunate we will continue to benefit from his steady leadership for the accreditation process and other ongoing critical activities," said Barrett. "The timing of his transition also gives us the opportunity to conduct an orderly, thoughtful and extensive search to find the next dean."

Tisher, 70, an internationally recognized authority on renal physiology and pathology, has been on the UF faculty for 26 years. He was appointed senior associate dean in 1998 and became dean in 2002. As dean, he oversees an expansive organization that encompasses 1,200 faculty and 2,600 staff on medical campuses in Gainesville and Jacksonville and an operating budget that exceeds $630 million.

Tisher's list of achievements as dean includes the establishment of the UF Proton Therapy Institute, which is slated to begin treating cancer patients next month on the UF Health Science Center campus in Jacksonville. One of only five facilities in the country offering this type of radiation therapy, "Florida Proton" has been a complex, multimillion-dollar undertaking that Tisher has pursued with steely determination.

Within the Health Science Center, said Barrett, Tisher is recognized for his exceptional leadership and solid management skills. He has proved adept at recruiting top talent from other institutions and retaining faculty considered vital to the strategic plans of the college. Those plans include enhancing the research profile of UF in areas like cancer, aging, diabetes, child health, neuroscience and genetics. Barrett also credited Tisher with substantially improving the college's financial health amid a turbulent economic environment for academic medical centers nationally.

Raised in South Dakota, Tisher graduated from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. After residencies in St. Louis and Seattle, he completed a fellowship in nephrology at the University of Washington. For the 10 years prior to joining UF, he was on the faculty of Duke University School of Medicine.

At UF, he served as chief of the division of nephrology, hypertension and transplantation from 1980 to 1997. In 1999, he was named the Folke H. Peterson Dean's Distinguished Professor of Medicine.