WINTER 2020
DEAN’S NEWSLETTER
As
��������������������������������������� onto 2020, two words are top-of-mind: change and transition.
In January 2019, I transitioned into the role as interim dean at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS); which in turn, brought about several changes for RWJMS and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS). Recognizing that I couldn’t operate two schools completely differently, I knew that I had to identify similarities and create synergies. Developing a working relationship between the schools was vital; and doing so started with bringing together both administrations and senior leadership. To date, that transition has worked extremely well, and as we move forward, we will look for additional opportunities to increase collaboration between the schools.
Which brings us to the potential for change on the horizon in 2020. Dr. Maria Soto-Greene and Tom Hecker, executive vice deans with NJMS and RWJMS, respectively, presented “The Future of Academic Medicine” to our school communities in late fall. Several models have been explored including keeping the schools operating at status quo, two separate schools under one DUNS number, and one combined school with ���������������������������������������� report has been sent to RBHS Chancellor, Dr. Brian Strom, who will then make a recommendation to the University Senate. ������������������������������������������� and RWJMS will continue in the spirit of collaboration as we provide exceptional research and education opportunities, deepen our ties within the community, and give outstanding care to our patients. In a broad sense, healthcare has moved to a ���������������������������������������� productive. We need a structure that makes sense. As such, we will see a transitional shift in patient care as Rutgers Health merges with RWJBarnabas Health. In 2019, our focus was on developing a practice plan between Rutgers Health and Barnabas. In 2020, we will start doing it. This alliance will be a huge undertaking for NJMS and will elevate our school’s stature among academic research institutions in the US. Throughout 2020, we will witness physical changes to the Medical Science Building,
as we begin a long-awaited multi-milliondollar renovation project. Although this project will take several years to complete, phase one begins this year.
At the university-level, change will come with a new president on July 1, 2020. Rutgers ��������������������������������������� leadership of outgoing President, Dr. Robert ��������������������������������������� President, Dr. Jonathan Holloway, will be supportive of the continued development of RBHS and the Health Science campuses. In closing, as we experience exciting transitions and progressive changes in the near future, my commitment to the ongoing success of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School will always remain constant. Wishing you a happy, healthy, and transformative new year! In health,
Robert L. Johnson, MD, FAAP’72
The Sharon and Joseph L. Muscarelle Endowed Dean, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Interim Dean, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
ARCHITECTURAL FIRM SELECTED FOR MSB RENOVATION Moving Forward with Innovative Ideas he proposed $400 million renovation of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School’s Medical Science Building took an important step forward with the voting committee’s selection of EYP Architecture & Engineering to lead the building project, starting in December 2019. ��������������������������������������� ������������������������������������ environmentally sustainable buildings for university, healthcare and research organizations.
��������������������������������������������� says Deborah Lazzarino, PhD, assistant dean for research, and a member of the voting committee. “EYP brought the project forward in a unique way that shows an understanding of our need to make the building an advanced model of functionality and design for the ��������������� The architects at EYP will now begin ����������
the design for the building renovations, delivering drawings for the project within a year.
“Construction is estimated to begin within ���������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������� and HVAC and renovating one side of the �������������������������������������� The proposed design modernizes and updates the building by emphasizing open ������������������������������������������� designed collaboration spaces for both educational and laboratory settings. “A lot of the discussion now is centered
around the needs and wants of the space, ������������������������������������������ ����������������������������������������� Siracusa, MD, assistant professor, Chancellor Scholar, department of medicine.
��������������������������������������structure over an all-new building offers the most environmentally-friendly path forward for the project. “We’re a growing, young research community, and I’m impressed by the university's commitment to transforming this building into a beacon of Rutgers in downtown ����������������������������
ENGAGE
������������������������������������ with campus activities during my ������������������������������������ “Thankfully, my mentor really helped me with time management.”
WITH
Mentorship
Now a second-year at New Jersey Medical School, Noureddine is one of the coordinators of ENGAGE, a wellness and lifestyle mentorship program sponsored ��������������������������������� ENGAGE (Embracing New Goals to ���������������������������������������� students with a second-year mentor who will reach out to them and see how they’re doing.
“Sometimes, if you don’t do so well on an exam, you can feel like you’re the only one,” Noureddine says. “As second-years, we’ve been through that. We can say, ‘It’s okay, you’re not alone. You’ll get it next time.’ We want to give people ������������������������������������������ �������������������������������������������� you absolutely will, too.” Second-year Victoria Pereira recalls her mentor explaining that “everything I was going through when
I felt overwhelmed by medical school was completely normal.”
As an ENGAGE mentor, Pereira tells her mentees to think small. “If you look at the big picture, you think, ‘Oh my god, how am I gonna get there?’ But if you take it in bite-sized pieces, this journey of medical school can be attainable day by day.” Jalize Canela, also a second-year ENGAGE mentor, strives to help her ���������������������
“It’s totally manageable to be involved and do well academically,” she says, “as long as you manage your time. I think if medical students focus strictly on class they’ll overwhelm themselves regardless of having outside commitments. Community engagement and networking are important, so I advise my mentees on the opportunities at NJMS and our hospitals and beyond.” To learn more about mentorship ������������������������������������ Student Affairs at 973-972-4783.
Centers of Excellence Offers Faculty Development Improving Inclusion and Equity in Academic Medicine The Hispanic Center of Excellence
nriching diversity within the NJMS faculty and student body has always been part of NJMS’s mission. With that in mind, the Hispanic Center of Excellence (HCOE) works tirelessly to reduce disparities in healthcare.
The Center supports individuals committed to advancing diversity in the medical profession and improving healthcare to underserved populations. Established in 1991, the HCOE has numerous goals, among them is providing a positive institutional climate and focusing on faculty development, which ranges from individualized programs to workshop and conference participation. Programs offered by the HCOE include: •
Negotiation Strategies: Where Finesse Meets the Fishing License • The Academic Medicine Careers: Planning, Positioning or Muddling Through?
•
Strengths Based Living and Leading: How to Own and Leverage Your Talents ����������������������������� • Unconscious Bias Training during Faculty and Residency Orientation • “No Tears Review” (a session focusing on Biostatics) The Centers of Excellence Consortium
The HCOE also developed the Centers of Excellence Consortium on Minority Faculty Development (COEC). The goal of the COEC is to increase the consortium’s collective capacity to attract, develop, and retain underrepresented minority physicians, faculty, fellows, and biomedical scientists for successful careers in academic medicine. This is practiced within a community of institutions committed to advancing diversity.
• • • • •
Meharry Medical College University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
Each year, one of the members hosts a two-day faculty development conference. Topics have included: grant writing, charting your own course and navigating ��������������������������������� drives your institution, a dean’s perspective on minority faculty development, and interprofessional education and team care.
The consortium consists of the following medical schools: • •
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
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Expanding the Reach of Research armer temperatures, increasing population mobility, and antibiotic resistance all raise the risk of infectious and ��������������������������������������������������������� New Jersey Medical School may help diagnose problems faster and treat them more effectively. NJMS has added 15 tenure-track faculty members in the past four years, all of them engaged in cutting-edge research. Among their number are specialists in cardiovascular and neurological disease, but most of them specialize in infectious and �������������������� “We focused on those areas for two reasons: the growing ������������������������������������������������������������������ ��������������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������������������������ senior associate dean for research. The challenges are many. More international travel has brought tropical diseases like Zika to the United States, while warmer weather has increased the incidence of tick- and mosquito-borne illnesses such as Lyme disease and eastern equine encephalitis.
Get to Know Dr. Shereef M. Elnahal
But the new researchers at NJMS have already made dozens of discoveries that may someday save lives. “We have hired top talent, many of whom came with NIH grants, ����������������������������������������������������������������� Diseases within Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences to �������������������������������������������������������� The topics of their many publications include new targets for medications designed to control allergic responses and how immune cells interact to mediate protective responses to fungal infections. ������������������������������������������������������reduce the negative effects of both infectious disease and chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity. To learn more about research being conducted at NJMS, visit njms.rutgers.edu/research.
utgers New Jersey Medical School welcomed Dr. Shereef M. Elnahal as the new president and CEO of University Hospital on July 15, 2019. His immediate goals are improving quality of care; boosting the ���������������������������������� creating a trusting and supportive environment for employees. Those steps will contribute to his long-term vision of transitioning the hospital to a more population-based care model that will position it as an anchor for the community. “We have no choice but to take a more active role in connecting those patients with social services because our patients depend on it and our operations depend on it as a hospital, but more importantly it’s ������������������������������������� have a special role as the only state hospital in New Jersey and the only ����������������������������
Dr. Elnahal came to University Hospital after serving as commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health, where he led more than 4,000 employees in addressing all public health matters of concern to New Jersey’s nearly nine million residents. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University with an MD and an MBA from Harvard, Dr. Elnahal is a licensed physician who previously served as the assistant deputy under secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and as an adjunct professor of health policy and management at ���������������������� ��������������������������������� ������������������������������������� �������������������������������������� ������������������������������������� the employees here, and it’s such a �����������������������������������������
2019 AT A GLANCE RESEARCH
PATIENT CARE • 490 Physicians
• In the past two years, 19 world class NIH funded faculty were recruited to NJMS.
• 17 Clinical Departments with
103
• Faculty published over
79
articles in high impact, peer-reviewed scientif ic journals.
• In FY 19, NJMS faculty received
$83M
in awards and contracts, which includes more than $50M f rom the NIH.
divisions and programs
• 42 physicians listed in 2019 Castle Connolly Top Docs
EDUCATION • 20 basic science and clinical departments
• 483 full-time and 87
part-time faculty members
• 729 MD students
• $110.09M in collections in FY19
• 33 MD/PhD students
• 765K total visits in FY19;
• 4 MD/MBA students
• 1.4M total WRVUs in FY19
• 3 MD/MPH students
• 17 patient care off ice locations
• 3 Accelerated primary care MD students
• 49 graduate medical education programs
FINANCES |
Annual budget of
$420M
(42% f rom clinical operations)
INFRASTRUCTURE SUPPORT
ADMISSIONS
The Class of 2023 178
49%
Residency Match • Has met or surpassed the
new students
national match rate for the past 10 years
• 25 specialties chosen
women
19% out of state representing 17 states
3
students entered the new 3-year option
20 countries represented 35 languages spoken
• 641 residents and fellows
Academic Honors
• NJMS leads all RBHS schools in number of faculty media interviews
• 700,000 square feet in 8 buildings
• Recent renovation of 26,000 square feet of clinical space
• Updated public spaces and
added 125 seats for student study and collaboration
• Alpha Omega Alpha Honor
• IT Closed 5,000
• Gold Humanism Honor
• 96% customer satisfaction level
Society:
Society:
32 new members
36 new members
Help Desk tickets
• 350,000 web hits in past
6 months
17%
entered with graduate degrees
• 240% increase in
followers across NJMS social media accounts
73% f irst generation medicine
• 309% increase in volume of messages received on social
2020 | SAVE THE DATES
Match Day March 20 • Rutgers Giving Day March 25 • Rutgers Day April 25 NJMS Convocation May 18 • White Coat Ceremony August 6