We are well into another academic year, and while faculty, staff and students have a lot to smile about, we still have much work to do. As I approach my one-year anniversary as interim dean and vice chancellor, one thing I have learned is that the people of Brody are clearly devoted to the school and are up to the challenges that lie ahead.
One of those challenges is to address the environmental and cultural issues identified through the work of the BSOM cultural assessment team and the ECU climate survey. We must find productive ways to value and recognize every employee's work, ideas and contributions to our mission. We must also become more aggressive in creating an inclusive, respectful culture conducive to teaching, learning, working and top quality patient care. While the school's leadership will play a pivotal role in this work, everyone in the school community must participate and demonstrate each day that they value each person around them.
Another challenge topping the list is the work the dean search committee is doing to identify a new dean to lead our medical school. The committee is working diligently to find just the right candidates for Brody. More information about their work is below.
A third important area is making sure ECU Physicians, our Medical Faculty Practice Plan, builds on the great progress we made last year. We can’t afford to relax and fall back into deficits. We have to continue to find new ways to meet our patients' needs and to put our patients first. New practice sites, such as Moye Medical Center, are helping us increase our patient volumes and revenues and improve patient satisfaction and efficiency. We will continue to strengthen customer service through additional staff training in this area and as we roll out the "Patients First" initiative, described in more detail below.
Brody is also working to meet the university's research ambitions. We had a record year in 2006-2007 with more than $20 million in research grants and external contracts. Recent grant announcements continue that trend. Congratulations to our faculty for this accomplishment despite difficult financial times last year.
While nationwide the number of students choosing to pursue family medicine has fallen in recent years, we continue to fulfill our mission of providing our state with family medicine and other primary care physicians. Even as we look to expand specialty services and improve financial performance, we will not stray from our mission of producing primary care physicians.
A very important part of our mission is educating nontraditional and minority students. We are doing well in that area but must expand that commitment to diversifying our faculty and staff as well. Faculty diversity is a focus of ECU as a whole and will be an important goal for Brody as well. We continue to prepare for the increased number of students, 76, who will enter our school next August. The members of the class size task force spent many hours researching the feasibility of increasing the class.
Likewise, we will continue serving eastern North Carolina through efforts such as the Bernstein Center, which we are helping lead, and a Veterans Administration clinic led by Dr. Jim Byrd. We also recently provided outreach and education via the Mini-Med School. One hundred participants from Pitt County and beyond learned about health care innovations as well as how to better take care of their own health. Thank you to our faculty, staff and students for volunteering their time, talents and expertise with these community residents.
Thank you for your hard work in helping Brody meets its goals.
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