When Daniel C. Tosteson '44 steps down from his post as dean of the Medical School (HMS) this June, he will leave his successor expanded research facilities, a recently remodeled campus and a new emphasis on individualized learning.
But Tosteson's replacement, neurologist Joseph B. Martin, inherits his position in an era of dramatically restructured health care systems and of reduced federal research funding.
Martin, now chancellor of the University of California at San Francisco, will need to maintain the Medical School's current level of academic excellence while finding increasingly scarce funding for research.
In addition, Martin, who is universally respected for his research achievements and his personal integrity, will have to carve out a place for himself within an administration increasingly centralized around President Neil L. Rudenstine.
The Race for Funding
When Martin arrives on campus, his first responsibility will be to protect medical research and education.
"I believe he correctly identifies the principle challenge is ensuring that the resources for medical research and education remain available at the needed levels," says Albert Carnesale, the University's provost, who participated in the search.
Because of the decline in funding for scientific and medical research and the resulting intense competition for money, Martin will have to fight hard to maintain Harvard's preeminence among medical schools.
Currently, the school pulls in more than $400 million in federal research grants each year. Its endowment now exceeds $840 million, up from the $138 million mark of 19 years ago when Tosteson began his deanship.
As part of the wider University capital campaign, now halfway finished, HMS has raised $160 million.
Unlike many medical schools, where administrators have been forced to shut down research facilities due to severe budget cuts and funding shortages, this year Harvard opened the Institutes of Medicine, a new research program designed to encourage collaboration among faculty members from affiliated hospitals.
But despite the current rosy financial picture, Martin will not be free of financial pressures.
"Sources of support for medical education, which in the past were reviewed as a legitimate part of the cost of health care, are now being seen as a competitive disadvantage," Carnesale says. "In particular, it is now difficult for physicians and health care institutions to charge higher prices if their activities and their institutions support medical research and education."
Carnesale said he is confident that "Chancellor Martin is very familiar with this set of problems and believes that they can be addressed constructively only through cooperative means," Carnesale says. Preparation Read more in NewsRecommended Articles
