Masks no longer required at NEOMED: That was among several announcements made by President John Langell in a spirited but otherwise “uneventful” report to the Board of Trustees at its quarterly meeting Thursday, March 17.
In welcoming everyone back to normalcy, Dr. Langell invited board members to the following day’s College of Medicine Match Day Ceremony, which he called the next biggest day to matriculation. He added that he looked forward to being able to fully enjoy such events, including the upcoming 2022 NEOMED Commencement at which Forrest Faison, M.D., a retired three-star admiral and former surgeon general of the U.S. Navy, would be the keynote speaker.
Dr. Langell shared news of the successful January enrollment of anesthesiology assistant students into the College of Graduate Studies and added that with its new programs, the College is positioned to quadruple in size.
Dr. Langell recognized and thanked Dr. Elisabeth Young, who retired after 30 years with the College of Medicine, and noted her accomplishments – including as dean, during which she managed the successful LCME accreditation process. He also thanked Drs. Jeff Wenstrup, Rick Kasmer and others for their excellent work and progress with HLC accreditation.
As he thanked Eugene Mowad, M.D., for his seamless transition as interim dean of the College of Medicine, Dr. Langell mentioned that a national search would take place in the future. Updates on other searches, including the vice president for advancement and the chair for anatomy and neurobiology, were provided, with the latter considered ongoing and the former within two weeks of announcing a hire. Dr. Langell thanked Lindsey Loftus for running the division as interim vice president.
Examples of creating transformational leadership rounded out much of the afternoon as the Student-Run Free Clinic at NEOMED was recognized for its triple-threat accomplishment: honors as physician, pharmacist and staff of the year. Other recognitions include Bernhard Fassl, M.D., for stepping-up NEOMED’s Global Health program; NEOvations Bench-to Bedside for tripling its number of teams this year; and Trinity Sampson, a M.D.-Ph.D. student, for launching the Student-run Medical Journal. The journal is led by 26 students and its first edition includes 11 manuscripts.