According to university officials and faculty responsible for bringing in a successor to School of Medicine (WUSM) dean William Peck, Peck’s renown in the world of medicine will make their task both easy and challenging.
Peck, who will conclude his deanship on June 30, 2003, has been widely recognized for a host of accomplishments since he assumed the post in 1989. This has increased the prestige of the position he holds, university officials say, but it also makes finding an equally able successor a distinct challenge.
“The replacement should be a statesman, an individual with outstanding personal integrity, exceptional leadership, sense of presence and a strong sense of collegiality, with the ability to balance interests and facilitate interactions in a positive way,” said Dr. Richard Gelberman, head of the department of orthopedic surgery and chair of the search committee.
Among Peck’s accomplishments are his participation in the creation of a center for advanced medicine, a new emergency medicine department and the addition of the Siteman Cancer Research Center (SCRC). He also helped develop state-of-the-art clinical facilities. Peck is the first to simultaneously serve as both dean of WUSM and executive vice chancellor for medical affairs.
Gelberman said that the dean position is alluring due to Peck’s success.
“WU is one of the finest institutions and [is] attractive because of the financial health of its medical school. It has proven the opportunities that the dean has at being effective, as shown by Dean Peck,” said Gelberman.
Gelberman said that Peck was successful not only in his creation of the SCRC, but also in recruiting outstanding department chairs.
“Dean Peck was able to manage the most successful clinical practice and academic health center in the world,” said Gelberman.
The search for Peck’s replacement is divided into two phases. As chair of the search committee, Gelberman is working on Phase I with the other fourteen members of the committee, including heads of various departments at WUSM. Phase I incorporates defining the personal characteristics that the dean should have while determining the issues that would confront the next dean.
On February 6 the committee will give a report on Phase I to the executive faculty. The second phase of the search process, which will begin in early February, will look at candidates throughout the country and at WU.
“We will be doing a wide canvassing of the academic community. Alumni will be canvassed as well,” said Professor of Anatomy Jane Phillips-Conroy, Ph.D.
The committee will soon be advertising the position in journals such as the Academic Physician and Scientist and Academic Medicine. In addition to advertising, the committee will be contacting the heads of leading medical schools in the country for recommendations.
Three consultants outside of WU have been aiding in the search process: Gerald Fishbach, Dean of Columbia Medical School; Herbert Pardis, CEO of New York’s Colombia Presbyterian Hospital; and Samuel Thier, CEO of Massachusetts General Hospital. Both Thier and Pardis will visit WU in person.
The committee hopes to have chosen a replacement by the summer of 2003.
“This search is of enormous national importance considering the leading position of the medical school,” said Gelberman.

Contact Annabelle at [email protected]

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