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David Bolam, M.D., left, shows Steven Wartman, M.D., Ph.D., the newborn intensive care unit at the medical center as UNMC’s Bob Bartee looks on. |
And he wasn’t disappointed.
Dr. Wartman, president of the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC), spent Tuesday afternoon meeting with UNMC leaders, touring the newborn intensive care unit and Biocontainment Unit and learning more about UNMC’s efforts in cancer research, microbiotics, neurosciences and nanomedicine. He spent the morning at Creighton University, also an AAHC member.
“Before I came I had heard that I would be very impressed by what I saw,” said Dr. Wartman, AAHC president since July 2005. “I am very impressed so far. The campus as a whole looks dynamic and growing. There is an excellent esprit de corps amongst the leadership and Chancellor (Harold M.) Maurer has done an excellent job.”
The AAHC is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health of the people by advancing the leadership of academic health centers in health professions education, biomedical and health services research, and health care delivery. The group has served and represented academic health centers for more than 40 years. More than 100 institutions are AAHC members.
“We’re pleased that Dr. Wartman chose to visit our campus,” Dr. Maurer said. “We’re fortunate to be able to spotlight the exciting things our faculty are doing to such a national figure in academic medicine.”
Dr. Wartman’s last visit to Nebraska was in the 1960s, he said, when Interstate 80 wasn’t completed and he traveled across the western half of the state on a two-lane road. This outing — which included stops at five academic health science centers in Iowa City, Omaha and Kansas City – was an opportunity to familiarize himself first-hand with AAHC members.
“This is state-of-the-art,” said Dr. Wartman, as David Bolam, M.D., led him around the new NICU in the Hixson-Lied Center for Clinical Excellence. Dr. Bolam is director of the NICU.
Between tour stops, Dr. Wartman credited UNMC for its strong and effective leadership. “UNMC is embedded in a community and state that clearly supports it,” he said, and “has developed cordial and productive relations with Creighton University.
“UNMC is a place that is ambitious and wants to go to the next level and has a good shot at doing that,” he said.
Dr. Wartman formerly served as executive vice president for Academic and Health Affairs and dean of the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He moved to Texas from New York, where he held several high-ranking positions at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
The AAHC addresses important health care issues that range from the problem of the uninsured to the integration of new medical technologies, issues relevant to the education, research, health care, and community service missions of academic health centers.