Dr. Mark T. Gladwin was named as the next dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine after a national search to replace Dr. E. Albert Reece, who announced last year he would step down after 16 years of leading the medical school.
Gladwin is a heart, vascular and lung physician and scientist, and currently serves as a professor and chair of the department of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
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He will begin the new positions of dean and vice president for medical affairs August 1 at a time when the Baltimore medical school has vastly increased its research and clinical dollars and its footprint. He will earn about $1 million a year in salary as dean, according to the university.
Research funding reached $600 million in recent years and clinical revenues are now around $350 million, with faculty physicians providing inpatient and outpatient care to more than 1.5 million patients annually at 62 locations around Maryland. The school also maintains research and treatment facilities in 30 countries.
It holds 130 U.S. and 228 foreign patents and 205 technology licenses and its faculty have made 576 scientific disclosure and started 33 companies.
The Maryland medical school became known during the coronavirus pandemic for developing and testing therapies and vaccines. And in January it gained attention for performing the first transplant of a genetically modified pig heart into a patient, who lived for two months after the surgery.
“I am very honored to have been selected as dean of one of the most prestigious medical schools in the country,” Gladwin said in a statement.
“Everything I learned during my visit to UMB furthered my desire to join the University of Maryland School of Medicine,” he said. “I was already well aware of its reputation for excellence in education, research, clinical care and community outreach. I look forward to listening to, and learning from UMB faculty, staff, and students as we continue the crucial work of carrying the School’s mission forward in Baltimore, around the state and around the world.”
Gladwin comes with an extensive clinical, management and research resume.
He also serves as associate dean for physician-scientist mentoring and associate vice chancellor for science strategy, health sciences, at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He was a founder of the Pittsburgh Heart, Lung, Blood and Vascular Medicine Institute.
“I could not be more pleased to announce Dr. Gladwin as the next dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine,” said Dr. Bruce E. Jarrell, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, who announced the appointment in a letter Tuesday to faculty, staff and students. “I am confident he will continue to enrich the legacy of our School of Medicine and position our world-class institution to meet the challenges of the future.”
Officials said they sought a new leader who could oversee academic and clinical missions, work with the surrounding Baltimore community and maintain the partnership with the University of Maryland Medical System, the affiliated 13-hospital network in the state.
Search committee members called the job challenging and multifaceted and said Gladwin had the right qualifications.
“The search committee was impressed by not only his experience, but also his vision for the future of medicine and the role of the medical school in today’s society,” said Claire M. Fraser, a professor of medicine and director of the Institute for Genome Sciences and chair of the search committee.
Aishwarya Iyer, an MD/PhD student in the School of Medicine and president of the University Student Government Association also was on the selection committee.
“I thought his research portfolio was phenomenal,” she said. “He comes from a really strong institution and has a lot of experience managing his position very well and very efficiently. I am excited to welcome this new dean.”
Selection committee members said Gladwin also would be able to fulfill another need of the job, ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion.
In Pittsburgh, he created a new vice chair position for diversity and inclusion and worked with the residency director to develop a specialty track aimed at attracting underrepresented minorities, among other initiatives.
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That work will continue at Maryland, where the medical school already has undergone changes to address allegations of sexual harassment and of a failure to create an equitable environment for women. In response in 2018, the school took several steps under a program called Program in Cultural Transformation that included promoting several women to executive leadership positions and creating a committee to make more recommendations and assess progress.
Gladwin earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of Miami and completed his internship and chief residency in internal medicine at the Oregon Health Science University. He completed a critical care medicine fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and a pulmonary fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle.
He has served in various positions at NIH and the University of Pittsburgh, where he was recruited in 2008 to serve as chief of the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine and the inaugural director of the Vascular Medicine Institute. He became department chair in 2014 and oversaw 800 faculty and $300 million in clinical and research funding.
Sickle cell research has been a specific focus for Gladwin for more than two decades. He has hundreds of published manuscripts in the fields of vascular and nitric oxide biology and has been the principal investigator on major clinical trials.
He was born in Palo Alto, California, and raised around the country and in Ghana, Mexico and Guatemala.
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Dean Reece will remain as part of the medical school’s faculty and as director of a new Center for Advanced Research, Training and Innovation and as co-director the school’s Center for Birth Defects Research.
“On behalf of the School of Medicine, I’m delighted to extend heartiest congratulations and a warm welcome to Dr Gladwin on his decanal appointment,” Reece said in a statement. “I’m most pleased to ‘pass the baton’ to him and look forward to his leadership in the years to come.”