Martin Sets Stage for Culminating Year as Dean

HMS dean Joseph Martin described his ninth annual State of the School speech as his most poignant one, having recently announced his intention to step down from his position in July. The speech was a look back, not just at Martin’s career as dean but at Harvard Medical School as a whole. He began with the school’s inception, examining how it has grown and changed and recognizing the celebration of the Quad Centennial in September. The dean (below) outlined the seven priorities he developed early on to help continue the growth of the School. He also reviewed what the HMS community has accomplished and what more needs to be done.

Photo by Liza Green, HMS Media Services

Collaborations
Martin’s first priority was expanding the basic science programs. While the most visible accomplishment in this area is the new research building, which added 550,000 square feet of space to the campus, many new and growing initiatives have emerged during Martin’;s tenure as dean. He noted the creation of the new Department of Systems Biology, the Harvard Institute of Proteomics, the Program in Chemical Biology, and the New England Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. In addition, the Department of Neurobiology and the Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology have both seen rapid expansion and taken advantage of inter--institutional collaborations.

The second priority Martin addressed was improving hospital relationships. He noted that the faculty numbers more than 7,000 full-time employees, with about 200 in the Quad basic and social science departments and the rest in affiliated settings.

“This is by far the largest community of faculty in any medical school in the world,” Martin said. With such a large pool of talented scientists in so many different disciplines, Martin saw an opportunity for sharing ideas across institutions, but at the time of his arrival the recent hospital consolidations had created an atmosphere of competition rather than cooperation.

Martin established seed grants that would allow Quad-based and -hospital-based faculty to work together. From there, many collaborations followed. The Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center consists of more than 800 researchers from across the HMS community and has been awarded the largest federal comprehensive cancer center grant ever. The Harvard Clinical Research Institute has brought together faculty from the Partners and CareGroup systems to develop clinical trials. The Harvard Medical School/Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics, the Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair, and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute are further examples of productive collaborations.

Integrating Education
The dean’s third priority was to nurture education. On this front, he instituted new ways of rewarding teaching. The MyCourses intranet was introduced to develop new courses and curricula and encourage communication between teacher and student. The MD–PhD program was reorganized; the MD–MBA program was established; and graduate programs in chemical and systems biology were launched. The Academy at HMS, devoted to improving medical education, has been an important tool for improving teaching by HMS faculty. Five years ago, a careful examination of the MD curriculum began, and in August, the first class to experience the new integrated curriculum arrived on campus. The first of these courses, a two-week introductory class, ended in a standing ovation.

Said Martin of this inaugural course, “I think it really did prepare [the students] in a very special way for what medicine is all about, looking at it from the vantage point, early on, of the entire field.”

The dean’s fourth priority was to develop community and public service opportunities. A service requirement is now a part of the new curriculum. HMS’s international programs have also seen rapid expansion, with the Division of AIDS, the Department of Social Medicine, and Harvard Medical International all establishing and continuing programs in dozens of countries. Martin gave a special nod to Jim Kim, the new Social Medicine chair, and he also noted that Harvard Health Publications, which had just published its first book upon his arrival, now reaches more than 700,000 readers with its newsletters.

The fifth priority was to take advantage of technology to improve communications and access to resources. ECommons, the HMS intranet, offers members of the HMS community a way to stay informed and in contact with multiple departments. Many Countway Library resources are online, including the new Center for Biomedical Informatics. There were also great gains in the research computing cluster, making technologies available for data-intensive research.

The Challenge of Diversity
When introducing his sixth priority, Martin said, “The diversity issue, in many ways, has been the most challenging.” Early on, the Executive Council on Diversity was established and guided the dean in a systemwide review of junior faculty “stuck” in lower ranks, which resulted in many women and minorities receiving promotions. Martin said that including junior faculty, “We have more underrepresented minorities at Harvard Medical School than I think any other school in the country.” He acknowledged that there is still work to be done, particularly at upper ranks, and that these junior faculty continue to need support.

“Raising money is the toughest part of the job,” Martin said in discussing his final priority. He outlined several grants and gifts the School has received in the past decade, but conceded that the task of fund-raising is never done. The former Building D on the Quad was renamed the Giovanni Auletta Armenise Medical Research Building in honor of the generous support of Count Armenise of Rome. The $20 million naming gift from Ellen and Melvin Gordon supported medical education reform and basic science and finally gave Building A a proper name—Gordon Hall.

The dean completed his final State of the School address by outlining all he hopes to accomplish by July, including science planning and the continued implementation of the new curriculum.

Martin concluded by pointing out the addition of the word diverse to the HMS mission statement, which now truly reflects the goals he set forth for the school at the start of his service as dean.

—Emily Lieberman

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