They say you cannot change the world. And yet the world changes every day. So who is making these changes? It happens with an individual. You. At our School, you and your colleagues can positively influence your lab, office or clinic. You can help us discover (or create) better ways to accomplish our goals. For example, over the past year the staff members in our Human Resources and IT departments, collaborating with colleagues at UPG and in the Medical Center, have streamlined the clinical faculty hiring process. The project team, with departmental representation, eliminated steps that did not add value and kept focus on the customer. Their result, which is poised to roll out, is a new system that promises to significantly reduce the cycle time of hiring clinical faculty from 72 to 25 days. This should not only decrease the number of mistakes and rework, but will increase the satisfaction of new hires and of those who participate in the hiring process.
It is singular efforts like this that, when combined with your contributions, make us a singular school.
Albert Einstein said, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Luckily, we are not tasked with changing the world. We just need to refocus and rethink the way we work, and to look to the future. We are asking for your participation in this Academic Strategic Planning process so that we may find the best ways to serve our students, our patients and our colleagues, and to advance the science of medicine.
Please join us to talk about our change at the School of Medicine’s strategic planning plenary session, “Times They Are a Changing,” on Thursday, March 6, 5:30-7 p.m., in the Medical Education Building Auditorium (Room 3110). A reception will immediately follow. I look forward to seeing many of you and hearing your ideas.
Sincerely,
Nancy E. Dunlap, MD, PhD, MBA
Dean, UVA School of Medicine
James Carroll Flippin Professor of Medical Science
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