Introducing the New Senior Vice President for Health Affairs
Greetings!
Let me start by saying how happy I am to be here. I'm sure some of you are wondering what attracted me to the University of Florida and the Health Science Center ... and let me assure you it's much more than just the prospect of a winter without snow. This is a great institution. A unique institution. And the excellent reputations of the University of Florida, the Health Science Center and Shands are well-deserved. What is particularly exciting about this opportunity, however, is the opportunity to implement President Machen's vision of an integrated academic health center under single leadership, bringing together the colleges that comprise the Health Science Center with Shands under a unified vision such that the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. I was an active participant in a very similar scenario at the University of Rochester and, with that perspective, see great things for the future at the University of Florida. We will aim high.
The synergies of an integrated academic health center can only be fully realized if we work together, and it's clear that teamwork has been a guiding principle here at Florida. Andrew Carnegie once said: "Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." Your commitment to scientific and scholarly collaboration is easy to see. It's clear in the design of your newest buildings, where labs without walls encourage cross-fertilization of ideas. It's evident in the multidisciplinary partnerships you have forged among researchers in disparate colleges and centers across campus. It's obvious in your growing commitment to interdisciplinary education, as students in medicine, nursing, pharmacy and health professions increasingly learn and train together in teams. Fostering those connections ... strengthening them and making new ones with the clinical enterprise... will help propel us forward. You have much to be proud of. The building blocks are in place.
In Dr. Barrett's final column, he wrote that progress is about laying strong foundations, then "taking our belief in a better tomorrow and acting on it." He described that academic health centers of today are doing this by building integrated organizations that "align mission, values and finances." I embrace this philosophy because I truly believe it's the key to success for all of us partnering in this process. So I'm sure you're wondering: Where do we go from here, and how do we get there?
We focus on connection and communication. We support transparency. We craft a shared vision together.
In the coming weeks we will set the stage for a comprehensive strategic planning initiative that will cut across the research, academic and clinical enterprises of the HSC and Shands, with the goal of charting a course for an integrated academic health center. By capitalizing on the ties we have across these areas and then nurturing a collective planning process, we will better position ourselves to define our niche in the marketplace, maintain our national leadership status in the realms of research and education and continue to excel in delivering topnotch patient care.
Few institutions in the country have the breadth of health-related colleges, centers and institutes we do on a single campus, coupled with alliances similar to those we've developed with the main university and with Shands. Of course, the Jacksonville campus also offers unique teaching and patient care opportunities, and a future that holds untapped potential to excel in biomedical research. With all that comes a strategic synergy. And to that end I welcome your feedback. I'd like to know what you view as our strengths. I'd like to hear more about how we might improve. Former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz said, "I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions." In the weeks and months ahead, I'll be asking a lot of questions, doing a lot of listening. I look forward to your ideas and your input. Together — faculty, staff, students, hospital employees, patients and others — we will find the answers we need through a thoughtful assessment.
Part and parcel of the shared strategic plan is the incorporation of initiatives that will generate the needed resources to fuel growth, so that the economic benefits of the plan can create a positive feedback loop to support continued advances in research, education and patient care that will best serve patients' needs and improve health outcomes. These resources will come from expansion of the clinical enterprise, from research grants, from economic development through technology transfer and, importantly, through the Florida Tomorrow campaign. As with every such endeavor, philanthropy will play an important role. Therefore the plan must generate excitement not just among ourselves, but among alumni supporters and friends of the institution.
I look forward to meeting you in the days ahead, and to talking about the great work you've been doing. I value open and frequent communication, and plan to communicate regularly in a variety of forums, to let you know what's on my mind, to keep you informed and to solicit your input. For starters, I'm happy to be here and I'm excited about what we will accomplish.
Let's learn from each other and move forward together. And Go Gators!
David S. Guzick, M.D., Ph.D. Senior Vice President, Health Affairs and President, UF & Shands Health System