State of the School Address

The Feinberg School has seen impressive growth in the last five years and with its affiliated hospitals is among the best positioned academic medical centers in the nation, reported Dean Lewis Landsberg, MD, and Jeffrey Miller, senior executive associate dean and chief operating officer, at the annual State of the School address November 15.

Held in the gleaming new Hughes Auditorium of the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center of Northwestern University, the address drew approximately 200 staff and faculty members, students, and other members of the medical school community. The event was sponsored by the school's Staff Relations Committee.

Since 2000 research space at the Feinberg School has grown 88 percent and education space 67 percent. "These numbers are phenomenal," said Miller. "No medical school in the country that we're aware of has grown its research and education space, proportionately, as much as we have." In April 2005 the opening of the Lurie Medical Research Center added more than 200,000 net square feet of research space, which was preceded by the addition of research space in the McGaw Pavilion of the Health Sciences Building and in the Ward-Morton-Searle-Tarry complex.

Education space grew with the addition of the Daniel Hale Williams Auditorium, case study rooms, and Clinical Education Center in the McGaw Pavilion in 2004 and the Hughes Auditorium, Eleanor R. Baldwin Auditorium, and seminar rooms in the Lurie Medical Research Center. "This space was sorely lacking," commented Dean Landsberg. "Raymond Curry [MD], executive associate dean for education, carried the flag for new education space and persuaded us that this was really important, and he was right."

The school hopes to break ground in the next five years on a 15-story tower connected to the Lurie Medical Research Center. Dean Landsberg estimates the research tower will cost approximately $150 million but noted, "It remains for us to raise the money to develop the space. That's among our challenges for the next five years."

Sponsored research programs at the Feinberg School have grown from $130 million in 2000 to $207 million in 2005. Research funds garnered by the medical school account for more than 54 percent of the total research budget for Northwestern. The number of principal investigators (PIs) with National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding grew by more than 100, and the school has more than double the number of PIs with annual awards exceeding $1 million.

Despite this growth, the school's rank in NIH research funding has budged only from 39th to 37th place. "This shows us the rough sledding we have to move up in this category," said Dean Landsberg. The school is ranked 20th overall by U.S. News & World Report.

The number of full-time faculty members grew by 300 since 2000, while the full-time staff grew 37 percent to more than 1,300 today. Enrollment in the MD degree program has remained stable, but the caliber of matriculants has grown, with the class that began in fall 2005 having the best academic credentials ever. Half the class is female, and 12 percent are underrepresented minorities. In 2005 the Feinberg School received an eight-year reaccreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting body for U.S. and Canadian medical schools. This is the longest reaccreditation period granted.

Enrollment in the school's graduate professional programs increased significantly from 2000. Enrollment in the Integrated Graduate Program in the Life Sciences nearly doubled. Increases were also seen in the MD/PhD program (Medical Scientist Training Program). Since 2000 the school has added three degree programs: MD/MPH (master of public health), master of science in clinical investigation, and doctorate in physical therapy.

The school's relationships with its academic medical center partners—Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH), Children's Memorial Hospital, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, and Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation (NMFF)—are strong and position the school well for the challenges ahead. Miller especially pointed to closer relations with NMH that have led to key recruitments and improved campus planning.

"A medical school can't succeed without a faculty practice plan and affiliated hospitals that share its vision and contribute to the goals of the collective enterprise," said Miller. "As long as we keep working together and supporting each other, we'll be hard to stop."

The medical school's total revenue in 2004 was $852 million, and in 2005 the school's endowment topped $1 billion. In the near future a center, program, or institute for clinical and translational research, as well as for stem cell research, will be added.

In the day-to-day operations of the medical school, efforts are under way to create an electronic directory that will enable visitors to locate all members of the medical school community, whether they work for the medical school or for affiliates such as NMFF. Other information technology goals include refining identity management so individuals need only one password to access University and campus systems, creating a clinical research data repository to facilitate the translation of research into patient care, and delivering larger portions of the curriculum electronically.

Miller noted that numerous organizational changes have occurred at the medical school since 2000, including the addition of four deanships, the appointment of new chairs in seven departments, and the creation of the Department of Emergency Medicine and Center for Genetic Medicine. "That's a lot of change," he remarked. "For us it's an opportunity to strengthen the organization by bringing in people who help us move faster and smarter on the path we've set." He predicted that in the next five years the University will have a new president and the medical school a new dean.

Sticking to the school's strategic plan, cultivating a culture of collaboration and cooperation, maintaining strong leadership at all levels, having a shared vision with the school's affiliates, and keeping the confidence of rank-and-file citizens in the value of academic medical centers will be key to success in the years ahead, said Miller.

Looking back at the last five years, he concluded, "We've made incredible progress. I can't think of any other way to say it. It's a credit to the leadership and all the hard work you've done."

Added Dean Landsberg, "We in the dean's office are proud of all that our faculty and staff members contribute to the school and will do our best to provide the leadership to continue to grow and advance the school."