From the Dean

Times of great change call for great leaders. Shaping the future requires not only expertise, experience and knowledge, but also the ability to step back to insightfully determine what can and must be different, as well as the courage to act on those judgments.

The social, economic and political changes being wrought in society today will heighten the challenges — and the opportunities — of medicine in the future. Many of those who are tomorrow’s leaders are now students of medicine at Michigan. Four of them are featured in our cover story for this issue, part of our series of articles that portray, through their experiences, what learning medicine is like in the early 21st century.

I believe you will recognize in these four bright physicians-to-be the character, commitment and drive that will propel them toward leadership in the field of medicine, and which make them and their classmates such a privilege to train. Already globally-oriented, organizationally savvy and community-minded, the students of our Medical School are squarely facing the future. The honor of teaching them carries a responsibility to do everything that we in academic medicine can do to prepare not just great physicians, researchers and medical educators, but great leaders as well.

Sincerely,

James O. Woolliscroft, M.D. (Residency 1980)
Dean, U-M Medical School
Lyle C. Roll Professor of Medicine