During yesterday’s virtual town hall meeting, many NSU MD students and faculty asked about our level of preparedness and the extent to which we have planned for the post-COVID-19 era. My response to them underscores both the gravity of the situation and our unique ability to adapt to our circumstances successfully, ensuring that the steps our College takes today will position us even more expediently for success and preeminence in the future.
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Recent days have brought unprecedented challenges and opportunities to our higher education and academic medicine community because of the ongoing spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). Last week, the U.S. Government declared the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency, enabling significant actions to diminish the risk of further infections as well as to protect the U.S. economy. As government and university officials continuously monitor this situation, it has become clear that proactive, rather than reactive measures are necessary to diminish viral spread and minimize health and safety risks to students, faculty, staff and our communities.
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We all are experiencing a great deal of uncertainty as we respond to the evolving coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. I want to thank Dr. Hanbury, his advisory team, our faculty and students and the entire NSU community for their leadership, support, resilience, and adaptability. We will continue to monitor this situation and want to make certain that everyone is informed as we depart from our normal routines and make necessary adjustments to mitigate the spread of COVID-9.

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In this context, it has been shown that Masters programs offered within a medical school environment can better prepare students to become competent health professionals, while enabling them to build more competitive applications to medical school. Moreover, Masters programs in the biomedical sciences that include electives in other concentrations accelerate the personal and professional development of students. The outcome is that such programs attract the best and brightest students to the medical school and the university.

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In a survey of more than 2000 employees across all professions and sectors of the United States economy, researchers found that when academic and/or private sector institutions set the highest ethical standards within a workplace, employees responded with a greater commitment to their work, improved loyalty, and greater enthusiasm for making impactful contributions. Establishing a “Doing the Right Thing” culture within an academic institution – without cutting corners – leads to more ethical and productive behavior on the part of the administration, faculty, students, and staff, while building trust within the organization as a whole.

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Culture eats strategy for breakfast, a phrase originated by Peter Drucker and made famous by Mark Fields, President at Ford, and an absolute reality! Any university that disconnects these two elements jeopardizes institutional progress in an ever-changing academic environment. Changing an organization’s culture in times of rapid change, and adapting to such changes, has been recognized as one of the most difficult leadership challenges in medical education and academic medicine. In order to succeed, there must be clear communication and alignment at the executive level in institutional leadership so that expectations are well-aligned, institutional directions are clearly communicated, and goals, strategies, and tactics are fully articulated to university faculty and staff. As our college advances rapidly toward full accreditation, organizational change has become the ‘new normal’ for all of us, raising the question of how to best thrive without losing sight of true North on our compass.

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As announced during the October 2019 faculty meeting, I would like to welcome our students, faculty, staff, colleagues, and friends and communicate – from the dean’s perspective – about our ongoing activities, plans, directions and challenges that will influence our culture and shape the collective vision for the future of our MD College. I am planning on sending updates every other week during the academic year and if you have comments, suggestions or announcements of events of general interest, please let me know, so that such news can be shared with our whole community. Please address your queries and comments to jvieweg@nova.edu

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