Cornell President David Skorton delivers his first Grand Rounds lecture on Jan. 18 at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Greater collaboration between Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC) and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and Cornell University in Ithaca is a major priority, stressed Cornell President David J. Skorton in his first Grand Rounds lecture at Weill Cornell on Jan. 18. Skorton broadly discussed the public service and outreach roles of academic health centers both at Cornell and in the community at large.
"We need to focus planning with agreement among all the institutions and increase the interdependence of the Medical College with the Hospital and Cornell-Ithaca," said Skorton, who is also a medical doctor and faculty member in internal medicine and pediatrics at the Medical College.
Dr. Ralph Nachman, chairman of the Department of Medicine, and President Skorton.
Because an academic health center like Weill Cornell and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital interacts heavily with the public, it faces unusually complex issues, he said. Human and animal research, he observed, is subject to extraordinarily tight governmental regulations, while patient care activities must be handled as both business and academic ventures.
"There are peculiar challenges to managing this system," Skorton said. "The question is, what should we do with this well-functioning but brittle enterprise?"
Faculty and especially students, Skorton said, can break down barriers most efficiently. Dr. Ralph Nachman, chairman of the Department of Medicine, agreed, saying, "The glue between institutions is students and educational programs, and we need to increase opportunities between complementary programs."
Skorton also outlined the Medical College's research role. Over the last 10 years, research spending by the Medical College has more than doubled, and federal funding for research at the College has increased 49 percent, even though federal biomedical research budgets have leveled off in recent years. In 2006, the Weill Cornell spent more than 30 percent of Cornell's overall research budget.
"The growth and differentiation of research activities at the Medical College have been incredible," Skorton said, adding that he would like to see the Medical College take a closer look at disparities in access to health-care services and workforce diversity as research issues.
President Skorton chats with Department of Surgery Chairman Dr. Fabrizio Michelassi following the Grand Rounds lecture.
Skorton's audience—probably one of the largest in recent memory for a Grand Rounds lecture—was impressed by his variation on the academic tradition.
"I think he beautifully outlined the social and economic issues facing medicine and health care today," said Dr. Alvin Mushlin, chairman of the Department of Public Health.
Through the mid-20th century, grand rounds were lectures presented by an experienced clinician diagnosing a patient with a particularly difficult condition before an audience of colleagues. In recent years, with the rise of medical subspecialties, the lectures have become more formal affairs, often presented by visiting experts who comment on rapidly changing medical advances.
For his part, Skorton—who jokingly described himself as "a doctor who went wrong, basically" by becoming an administrator—enjoyed the opportunity to revisit Grand Rounds. "I feel like I'm coming back home to be in a Medicine Grand Rounds," Skorton said. "Although I must say, when I was an associate chair of medicine we never got turnouts like this at Grand Rounds."
President Skorton speaks with students and faculty, including Class of 2008 student Jenica Upshaw and Assistant Professor of Medicine Dr. Carla Boutin-Foster.
President Skorton with Cornell alumnus and Weill Cornell Class of 2010 student Daniel Friedman.
Photos by Richard Lobell.