A Letter from the Dean

These are exciting days at Dartmouth—days to reaffirm our core mission and goals, while we move boldly forward to improve lives.

We welcome Dartmouth President Phil Hanlon (D'77) back home to Hanover. The medical school looks forward to contributing much to his and Dartmouth's success in the years ahead.

A critical part of that success for Dartmouth and the Geisel School of Medicine is delivering an outstanding educational experience for our students, attracting and retaining world-class faculty, and embracing the world's troubles as our own by selectively investing in promising research and discovery and working to improve the health of the communities we serve.

No new initiative is more important to realizing these core goals than the construction of our Williamson Translational Research Building (WTRB). Why is that?

• The WTRB is essential for Dartmouth to have a top academic medical center.
  • Every top-20 medical school has the dedicated space needed to attract NIH Clinical and Translational Science (CTSA) mega-grant awards.
  • The WTRB will support investigators bringing discovery from bench to bedside and will foster cross-disciplinary translational research.
  • The WTRB will allow researchers and physicians working in cancer and the neurosciences to have immediate access to our experts in the computational medical sciences (TDI, biostatistics, bioinformatics, and epidemiology).
• The WTRB is critical to recruiting and retaining top faculty.
  • Top researchers demand state-of-the-art research facilities.
  • Basic scientists, physician-scientists, clinicians, and physician-educators all want to be part of an institution that conducts clinical research.
• The WTRB is key to attracting top graduate students and providing unique laboratory opportunities for undergraduate students.
  • Approximately 40 percent of Dartmouth undergraduates express interest in medicine or biomedical research.
  • More than 100 undergraduates participate in summer research with Geisel faculty.
  • The WTRB will provide students with access to top scholars in interdisciplinary research.

The WTRB will make Geisel and Dartmouth better. The WTRB—along with our innovative curriculum redesign and our urban, rural, and global health partnerships—puts Dartmouth in a position to tackle tough problems and improve lives across the globe.

Lastly, I'm excited about the beautifully redesigned and reimagined Dartmouth Medicine magazine you have in your hands. I thank Amos Esty (editor) and Matt Wiencke (associate editor) for their leadership in this process, which reflected much feedback from our readers.

These truly are exciting days at Dartmouth.

Wiley "Chip" Souba, MD, ScD, MBA
Vice-President for Health Affairs, Dartmouth College
Dean, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth