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 The University of Illinois has shaped much of my career and I am forever indebted to my predecessors, mentors, and peers for instilling the University’s standard of excellence in education, research, and medical leadership. My connection to the University began in Urbana where I obtained an undergraduate degree in 1968. From Urbana I matriculated to the Chicago campus to complete my M.D. (’71) and residency and research training (’75). Regardless of the campus, the University of Illinois faculty consistently offered guidance and nurtured success. It is with great honor that I now serve as dean and hope to carry on this tradition of excellence.
These are exciting times at the University of Illinois. The College has seen tremendous growth over the last few years. A new, state-of-the-art research building was erected on the Chicago campus in 2005 to house an outstanding core of research scientists. On the Peoria campus a similar project is in development to erect a 20,000 square-foot Cancer Research Center. The College continues to rise up the ranks in sponsored research with expenditures well over $100 million each year and we currently have several departments among the top twenty in NIH funding. New interdisciplinary models for a Cancer Center and Center for Clinical and Translational Science have been established through multi-collegiate cooperation at UIC along with technology driven partnerships in genomics and nanotechnology through the Colleges of Engineering, Computer Science at both the Chicago and Urbana campuses.
The University Of Illinois College Of Medicine is the country’s largest medical school and one of the few offering comprehensive regional campuses with statewide services. Our sites in Chicago, Peoria, Rockford and Urbana are dedicated to producing new knowledge in the medical sciences, develop best practices in health care delivery, and educate the next generation of physicians and biomedical scientists committed to serving the needs of Illinois and the nation.
The College offers a rich curriculum designed to ensure an encompassing medical training and promote the public interest. In addition, our statewide presence offers the rare opportunity for clinical rotations through federal, county, state, community and private hospitals. A few programmatic highlights include:
The diversity of our programs is exceeded only by the diversity of our students. Year after year, the student body proves to be a talented group, sophisticated in cross-cultural sensitivity, with knowledge and skills in developing health care delivery responsive to community needs and values.
The University Of Illinois College Of Medicine is dedicated to cultivating students into outstanding doctors that know the essence of patient care is caring for the patient. This commitment has tremendous import on the future. We are witnessing one of the greatest revolutions in our collective lifetimes with the advances in biotechnology made possible in this new post genomic world. Medicine is changing to encompass gene and stem cell therapies, the use of wireless nanotechnology for drug delivery and surgery and most importantly the capacity to diagnose illness before it happens. In order to successfully implement these advancements, medicine must remain at its core a very humanistic profession.
Sincerely,
Joseph A. Flaherty, MD ’71, BS ’68
Dean, UIC Collge of Medicine
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