Weill Cornell Medicine is ending an extraordinary year, touting a new name that exemplifies the unprecedented clinical growth, scientific advancement, and educational accomplishments that have cemented the institution as a driving force in healthcare.
During her annual State of the Medical College address on Dec. 7, Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, lauded these achievements, which she said underscore the institution's position at the forefront of scientific innovation.
"We are set on a path for truly remarkable growth," Dr. Glimcher said to a crowd of more than 150 faculty, students and staff at Uris Auditorium. "Our trajectory has been impressive over the last several years."
In July, the Association of American Medical Colleges named Weill Cornell Medicine the fastest growing medical school in the country based on its increase in operating revenue over the past five years. The successes that led to this period of growth — which culminated in October with the launch of the new Weill Cornell Medicine name — have set the foundation for the institution's strategic development.
"We all want growth to be sustainable, directed and to lead to excellence across our mission," she said. "We don't want growth for growth's sake; we only want to grow to increase excellence and make sure we're serving all of the needs of our patient population."
Delivering the Finest Care
To that end, Weill Cornell Medicine and its faculty practice, Weill Cornell Physician Organization, have added more than 40 medical practices in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn to connect New Yorkers to a network of exceptional physicians. The institution has added more than 150 physicians to its ranks at NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital, and has established five practices nearby to provide patients with top-tier clinical care.
At NewYork-Presbyterian/Queens, all major department chairs and division chiefs, as well as new specialists, will be Weill Cornell Medicine physicians. These new recruits will engage with their counterparts on the Upper East Side to ensure seamless delivery of care.
This expansion of physicians and locations culminated in 1.64 million patient visits this year, an 11.2 percent increase from fiscal 2014 and 42.3 percent from 2010.
In addition to Weill Cornell Medicine's expanded clinical footprint, the institution established the accountable care organization NewYork Quality Care with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. The ACO is dedicated to providing 30,000 Medicare beneficiaries in New York with exemplary patient care coordinated between providers.
"It's very important that we learn how to manage population health," Dr. Glimcher said," because that really is the future."
Making Groundbreaking Discoveries
Dr. Glimcher during her annual State of the Medical College address.
Excellence in patient care is realized only through a robust biomedical research enterprise that can translate discoveries made in the lab into advanced treatments for the clinic. The Belfer Research Building — which earned LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council earlier this year — is empowering the institution's investigators to do just that. The building, now 80 percent occupied, is an engine for groundbreaking research and "an enabling force in establishing a new baseline for Weill Cornell Medicine-sponsored programs," Dr. Glimcher said.
"This has been a success story by all accounts," she added. "This the first time in at least the past quarter-century that the rate of growth of our sponsored research is actually greater than the percent growth of our clinical programs."
Dr. Glimcher attributed this to the building's state-of-the-art scientific technology and enhanced research support core services that enable investigators to conduct high-impact studies.
Case in point is the institution's precision medicine program, which received a boost in September with a generous gift from Overseer Israel Englander and his wife, Caryl. The gift, which names the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, will bolster the work that Drs. Mark Rubin, Himisha Beltran and Olivier Elemento are doing to sequence tumors and pinpoint the most effective treatments for each patient.
"Our dream is that every patient with cancer who crosses the threshold of this institution will have their tumors sequenced,” Dr. Glimcher said, “enabling us to better understand and design the best therapeutics for that individual.”
One of the institution's priorities has been to establish relationships with industry to advance basic science breakthroughs that have commercial potential into viable treatments. The Office of BioPharma Alliances and Research Collaborations, in conjunction with the Center for Technology Licensing at Cornell University, is leading these efforts, forging strategic research alliances with industry and supporting faculty who establish startup companies. The Daedalus Fund for Innovation, now in its second year, provides up to $100,000 in grants to help investigators make their research more attractive to the biopharmaceutical industry.
"The interaction and collaboration between academia and private-sector industry is absolutely a marriage made in heaven," Dr. Glimcher said. "Discovery is best done in an academic setting, but there are many things we can't do here as easily as the private sector. Teaming up with pharmaceutical companies, founding new companies — this is the future."
Teaching Exceptional Doctors and Scientists
While the institution expanded the medical school class size by five students to 106, this year was no less competitive. Culled from nearly 6,200 applicants, the 49 women and 57 men who comprise the Class of 2019 have an average undergraduate GPA of 3.84 — the highest ever at Weill Cornell Medicine — and tied for highest-ever MCAT scores.
Weill Cornell Medicine celebrated the successful launch of its medical curriculum last year, and integrated the feedback from students in the Class of 2018 into version 2.0, unveiled this fall. Academic leaders are continuing their work to enhance the curriculum, with a particular focus on scientific studies during the clerkship years.
"We want students to spend the vast majority of their time in the second two years learning how to take care of patients," Dr. Glimcher said, "but it's also important to continue to expose them to cutting-edge, clinically relevant research topics so we can promote life-long learning approaches."
The Weill Cornell Graduate School is thriving under the leadership of Dr. Gary Koretzky, who has "improved the quality of students, the quality of the curriculum and the attention that we pay to our graduate students over the last couple of years," Dr. Glimcher said. And she extolled the Tri-Institutional M.D. - Ph.D. program as "one of the jewels in our crown," noting that three medical students have transferred into the program this year.
Qatari citizens comprise 30 percent of Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar's inaugural six-year medical-education program, which the location established to augment its goal of building a talented cadre of physicians for the country. WCM-Q’s medical school continues to flourish, attracting an exceptional 27 women and 19 men hailing from Qatar and 13 other nations for the Class of 2019.
Weill Cornell Medicine has the highest percentage of any U.S. medical school of graduates who have obtained full-time faculty positions at academic medical centers, Dr. Glimcher said. She also highlighted the institution's distinguished legacy in preparing a diverse physician workforce, noting that it ranks in the 92nd percentile of medical schools in the number of graduates who are African American and the 82nd percentile in Hispanic graduates. Weill Cornell Medicine is in the 91st percentile of medical schools in the number of women faculty, and in the 81st percentile in the number of faculty from under-represented groups.
"Diversity is essential to developing creative solutions to the challenging problems we are all facing in healthcare, biomedical research, and education,” Dr. Glimcher said.
Forging a Network of Powerful Partners
Many of these solutions are achieved through collaboration. Weill Cornell Medicine's network of powerful partners ensures that the institution can continue to innovate and deliver the finest care to patients.
Collaboration is exemplified in the institution's work with clinical affiliate NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and at the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute; at Cornell Tech, where the first buildings are expected to open in 2017; and at the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, which received a $50 million endowment gift from Nancy Meinig '62 and Peter Meinig '61, their daughters and their families, that expanded and elevated it from a department.
These connections extend to Houston Methodist, which has expanded the number of Weill Cornell Medicine students it can teach through clinical clerkships, and to Haiti, where GHESKIO opened a state-of-the-art, open-air hospital to treat patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis.
"We're a medical center that collaborates," Dr. Glimcher said. "We have wonderful partners in New York, across the country and abroad whose valuable support enables us to advance our mission.”
Taking a Strategic Approach to Future Growth
Weill Cornell Medicine’s successes over the past year have enabled it to take a strategic approach to guide its future growth. The tactic has resulted in nine new leadership appointments, including Nobel Prize winner Dr. Harold Varmus as Dr. Glimcher's senior advisor, Dr. Leonard Girardi as chairman of cardiothoracic surgery, Dr. Silvia Formenti as chair of radiation oncology, and Dr. Jane Salmon as associate dean for faculty affairs.
The institution is also examining how best to meet its mission to provide patient care, discover new treatments, and educate future physicians. It is in the process of identifying key priorities and goals for the next five to eight years, in order to ensure that Weill Cornell Medicine retains its status as part of a premier academic medical center.
"We have a very, very bright future," Dr. Glimcher said. "We have to be very thoughtful about how we take our next steps."