Two distinguished alumni of Cornell University Medical CollegeDr. Gerald D. Fischbach, '65, and Dr. Steven G. Gabbe, '69will assume new positions next year as deans of the medical schools of Columbia University and Vanderbilt University, respectively.
Dr. Fischbach, who is director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, will join Columbia University in February as vice president for health and biomedical sciences, dean of the faculty of health sciences, and dean of the faculty of medicine. A noted neuroscientist, Dr. Fischbach was chairman of the neurobiology departments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital before being named director of the NINDS, and previously was head of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, Mo.) In his new positions at Columbia, he succeeds Dr. Herbert Pardes, who stepped down as dean to become president and chief executive officer of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in January 2000. Dr. Fischbach's wife, Dr. Ruth Fischbach, an alumna of the Cornell University–NewYork Hospital School of Nursing, is also joining the faculty of Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons as professor of bioethics in psychiatry. After graduating from the CU-NYH School of Nursing, Dr. Fischbach earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Boston University and an M.P.E. degree from Washington University. She served as senior advisor for biomedical ethics in the Office of Extramural Research at the NIH.
Dr. Gabbe, who is chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Washington Medical Center (Seattle), will become dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in March. He is a noted perinatologist who also chaired the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Ohio State University College of Medicine. The author/co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and abstracts, 71 chapters, and nine books, Dr. Gabbe is particularly recognized for his contributions to the management of diabetes and pregnancy. He is senior editor of the textbook "Obstetrics: Normal and Problem Pregnancies," now in its fourth edition. He is current chairman of the 220-member American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society. His many honors include election to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.