Finalists interviewing for dean of new Fort Worth medical school

The last of four finalists for dean of a new medical school to be run by TCU and the University of North Texas Health Science Center was in town Thursday.

Dr. Anne Mosenthal, chair of surgery at Rutgers’ New Jersey Medical School, was at the UNT Health Science Center on Thursday and was scheduled to visit TCU on Friday.

Mosenthal is one of six women who chair surgery departments at medical schools in the U.S. even though there are 144 across the country, according to nj.com website, which is an affiliation of New Jersey publications. Her areas of focus include surgical critical care, colorectal, trauma, intensive care and multiple organ failure, according to her webpage.

“There have only been nine women chairs of surgery in all of U.S. history,” Mosenthal said in the Sept. 23 article. “The further you rise, the fewer women are your peers.”

Dr. Marc Kahn, senior associate dean at the Tulane University School of Medicine, was visting TCU on Thursday after interviewing at UNTHSC on Wednesday.

Kahn is the Peterman-Prosser Professor in the section of hematology/medical oncology at Tulane. He has been honored multiple times, including among other awards the C. Thorpe Ray Faculty Teaching Award (1995, 1996, 2002), the Gloria P. Walsh Award (2000), and the Health Sciences Teaching Scholar Award (2001), according to his webpage.

The second of four candidates, Dr. Saul Weiner, vice provost for planning and programs at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, was on campus at TCU Wednesday after speaking at the Health Science Center on Tuesday.

Weiner’s areas of interest include internal medicine and pediatrics. His research has included a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded study “that explores how large healthcare institutions manage patients without health insurance,” according to his university webpage.

Last week, Dr. Stuart Flynn, dean of the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona in Phoenix, spoke with faculty and students at both campuses.

The Phoenix medical school opened in 2007 as a branch of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. It was originally intended to be a partnership with Arizona State University before ASU dropped out to work with the Mayo Clinic on a Scottsdale medical school, according to the Arizona Republic.

The newspaper also reported that Flynn’s visit is taking place as the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix is “working to maintain and advance its status with an accrediting body that last June warned of probation or loss of accreditation.”

TCU and the Health Science Center announced plans for the new medical school in July when the two schools entered into a memorandum of understanding.

Korn Ferry, an executive recruitment firm, is helping with the search for a dean.

The co-chairs of the search committee are Susan Weeks, dean of TCU’s Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences, and Myron Jacobson, dean of the UNT Health Science Center’s College of Pharmacy.

The committee has been meeting since late September, Carlton said.

It is not clear with a finalist for the job will be chosen.

The new medical school’s startup costs will come from private donations to the M.D. programs, and long-term funding will come from tuition, fees and private support.

The UNT Health Science Center already has the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, which has been in Fort Worth since 1970 and has been seeking approval for an M.D. program. That effort faced opposition from many osteopathic physicians.

The new M.D. program will exist alongside the D.O. training.

“I haven't been bashful in talking about the need for an M.D. school in Fort Worth,” Health Science Center President Michael Williams told the Star-Telegram Editorial Board in July. “There is nothing wrong with having two medical schools in the same town.”

The new school’s first class, which is expected to have 60 students, is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2018. TCU and the Health Science Center project an enrollment of 240 students by 2021-22.

This report includes material from Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published January 19, 2016 at 4:33 PM with the headline "Finalists interviewing for dean of new Fort Worth medical school."