The Dean’s Column
My decade at Jefferson has been quite a ride.
As the 24th dean of a medical college with a two-century history, two things differentiated me out of the gate: I was an outsider and a physician-scientist.
Jefferson Medical College deans of the 19th century typically came from the ranks of the college’s department chairs, and later in the century many were also Jefferson graduates. It was well into the 20th century that the first thoroughly non-Jeffersonians entered the picture—Deans William Kellow (1967–81) and Leah Lowenstein (1982–83)—making me, by our university archivist’s count, just the third fully outsider dean in the medical college’s history. I was also a bench scientist—a card-carrying molecular immunologist designing fusion protein pharmaceuticals for cancer and autoimmunity, sporting a biotech start-up. (In fact, with an active research lab in Jefferson Alumni Hall, it looks like I’m the first dean to practice at the bench while doing the dean’s business.) Traditionally, our medical college deans had distinguished themselves as master clinicians and educators in the Osler mold. Two identifiable researchers were the anatomist and thoracic surgeon Dean George Bennett (1950–58), and Dean Lowenstein, an investigator of kidney diseases.
Some Jefferson deans back then were outright anti-Flexnerian to the core. Dr. Virgil Holland Moon, incoming Pathology chair in 1927, recalled Dean Ross Patterson’s telling admonition: “You will not be expected to do research work; in fact, I may say you will be expected NOT to do research work. A dog cannot chase two rabbits at the same time: Should he try to do this, both rabbits will escape. A man cannot do good teaching and carry on successful research simultaneously.” Fair to say, the medical college of today sees it differently, doggedly encouraging our students to chase more than one rabbit.
Entering Jefferson in December 2008, I took stock, armed with an outsider’s perspective. The first order of business was to reassure everyone of our deep respect for Jefferson’s two-century legacy. But legacy would have to be coupled with transformation. There was extraordinary talent everywhere one looked on campus—SKMC deans, faculty, staff—yet there was plenty of work to be done under the hood on the administrative chassis if we were to ramp up growth and press for distinction. We rolled up our sleeves in the dean’s office, introducing systematic, six-year-cycle, departmental reviews; restructuring chair contracting; centralizing grants management; clarifying research productivity expectations; rolling out an incentive-based clinical faculty compensation plan; and much, much more. Bob Barchi—the forceful, clear-thinking president who transformed our Center City campus and recruited me from Penn—proved a masterful enabler.
As for the research enterprise, it was a tale of two cities. We had an array of outstanding, world-class scientists, yet we were experiencing unimpressive extramural funding. The root cause: a vanishingly small programmatic grant portfolio at a time when NIH was shifting dollars to team science. That prompted our multiyear journey to develop programmatic research themes—tightly defined hot topics where we could credibly build top-five national strengths. That strategy is already bearing fruit in areas ranging from small RNA discovery to mitochondrial pathogenesis; from G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) therapeutics to immunity to emerging infections; from synaptogenesis to stem cell therapeutics in the nervous system.
Wearing my other hat—president of Jefferson University Physicians (JUP)—I focused on clinical growth by building the practice and expanding distinctive, high-end clinical services. Our fearless Ogunkeye-plus-Keane-plus-Tykocinski JUP leadership trio garnered tangible results as we partnered with David McQuaid on the hospital side to materially advance Jefferson’s clinical enterprise. Together we established the first formal clinical service line structure and soon started putting notches in the “win” column. Additionally, over a five-year period, we grew JUP from around 470 to over 650 faculty. No doubt this gave us heft for the mergers to come.
When Dick Gozon assumed the interim president mantle, he brought a daring willingness to think out of the box strategically. Then entered visionary Steve Klasko—boldness on steroids. Now, six years later, we are one of the fastest-growing academic medical centers in the country. A dynamic, new Jefferson Health has emerged, securing Jefferson’s future and identifying Jefferson with innovation. Legacy plus transformation has been realized. Adding to the power and prestige of our growth was the naming gift from a true American success story and Philadelphia champion, Sidney Kimmel. At the time, it was the fifth-largest gift of its kind.
As a new Jefferson unfurled, my role transformed. I stepped away from JUP, becoming instead the university’s first-ever provost. This provost/dean model paved the way for bridging administrative chasms that had long siloed the medical college away from the others; research, faculty, and student and global affairs could all now be effectively coordinated campuswide. And then, in July 2018, we made a historic pivot as we neared our bicentennial—the merger with Philadelphia University. “Health Is All We Do” instantly gave way to “Redefining Humanly Possible.” And now, as a provost overseeing a much broader spectrum of professions across a multicampus university, I attend student fashion runway shows and architecture and industrial design competitions!
Within the medical college, this past decade has been defined by a handful of passion projects (see timeline on page 42). At the top of list: elevating co-curriculum as a key element of medical education and a signature SKMC archetype. The College-within-the-College led the way, with co-curricular tracks directed to global/population health and clinical translational research, and later, design. Under the subsequent banner of Medicine+, the overarching concept has been to nurture within our medical students crosscutting ways of thinking. A series of programs have unfolded: Medicine + Design (design thinking), Medicine + Humanities (reflective thinking), Medicine + Data Sciences (computational thinking), Medicine + Policy (relational thinking), and more to come.
Each Medicine+ co-curricular pathway is powered by unique partnerships. Take Medicine + Design. MEDstudio@JEFF was the original spark that spawned a web of links to the community of creatives in Philadelphia and beyond, by example, weaving both SKMC and then Philadelphia University into the MIT-led, Department of Defense–funded Advanced Functional Fabrics of America consortium, where we lead smart fabric applications for health. After prompting an assured SKMC admission linkage with Princeton University for undergraduates immersed in design thinking, the Medicine + Design co-curricular pathway next catalyzed a groundbreaking merger with the storied Philadelphia University, known for its leading programs in design, textiles engineering, fashion, and architecture. Our medical students now work side by side with industrial design and textile engineering students in JeffSolves, creating solutions to real-world clinical problems and spawning start-ups in the process.
Reimagining the curriculum itself has been equally top of mind. JeffMD has taken shape over the past two years as a quantum leap forward for our educational programming. This is in keeping with the proud Jefferson tradition of minting exceptional clinicians and our aspiring toward a new breed of high-dimensional, humanistic physicians empowered by outstanding healthcare teams, artificial intelligence, and robotic enablers.
Yet another passion project is Jefferson’s global centers. The concept is to concentrate our precious resources on a limited set of countries where we develop deep multi-institutional relationships around compelling value propositions. The Jefferson Italy Center has already launched a first-of-its-kind international dual MD program (see page 20), as well as a budding strategic partnership with the University of Bologna, the world’s oldest. The Jefferson Japan Center has been powered by a Japanese philanthropist inspired by our forefront programming at the medicine-humanism interface. The Jefferson Israel Center has us tapping into the innovation ecosystem of a country that is No. 1 worldwide in start-ups per capita. And the Jefferson India Center positions us to lead the way in addressing pressing global health challenges, from maternal and child health to diseases of the eye.
The past decade has also ushered in a series of creative centers and institutes. Founding our Computational Medicine Center has put Jefferson on the map where big data meets biomedicine and the genome. This is but one component of a multipronged Jefferson push into the computational sciences realm, as we now innovate Population Health Intelligence, launch an Institute of Digital Health, and pioneer artificial intelligence applications in radiologic and pathologic diagnostic imaging. Our nationally recognized Jefferson Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education continues to lead the way in innovating teamwork approaches in healthcare. And the list goes on.
While these initiatives speak for themselves, I am perhaps most proud of something less tangible: Jefferson’s cultural transformation. Not long after I arrived, we turned the 50th anniversary of the first women to matriculate in our medical college into a yearlong celebration of women in medicine, sending a clear message about values. MEDstudio’s “Beacon” installation on Lubert Plaza five years later sent yet another message—that a staid institution dating to 1824 can do eye-popping things. This award-winning sculptural installation at the heart of our campus was truly a beacon beckoning a culture of innovation. Introducing the Dean’s Concert Series (2010) and the Dean’s Student Leadership Forum (2011) was my way of subliminally messaging to our students the importance of attending to their inner selves. And above all else, in Sidney Kimmel Medical College the culture change has meant instilling in our faculty and staff a higher level of self-confidence born of the excellence permeating every corner of our university.
Perhaps there is some benefit after all to having an outsider look in from time to time, to encourage chasing more than one rabbit, and to remind all of the magnificence of their institution and its unbounded future.
Mark L. Tykocinski, MD
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Thomas Jefferson University
Anthony F. and Gertrude M. DePalma Dean
Sidney Kimmel Medical College