EDINBURG — New faces are visiting the year-old School of Medicine at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley as officials are nearing the hiring of its new dean.
Three candidates have already visited the university, where they completed interviews and met with students and faculty, said UTRGV President Guy Bailey, and a fourth and final candidate will be visiting this week.
“We are in the interview process right now,” Bailey said. “Once that person comes and we interview him, we will try in the next 10 days to get an appointment. We would like to get an appointment by the end of April.”
The spot for a dean opened in June, when Founding Dean Francisco Fernandez stepped down for the role of seeking other opportunities within the school. Since then Dr. Steven Lieberman, professor and senior dean of medicine at UT-Medical Branch in Galveston, took the spot as interim dean.
Lieberman was confirmed to be one of the final four candidates along with Dr. John Krouse, senior associate dean at Temple University School of Medicine; Dr. Michael Gomez, assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine; and Saul Weiner professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Krouse is the last candidate to visit this week.
“It was a pretty robust pool,” Bailey said of the 20 applicants. “It’s one of the strongest pools that I’ve been associated with.”
The university formed a 29-person committee to select the candidates in November, and moved to begin the hiring process, which at the time was estimated to take up to six months.
The committee was formed of 13 UTRGV faculty and staff and 16 external members including McAllen Mayor Jim Darling, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance Chief Administrative Officer Dr. Carlos Cardenas, and Dr. Amy Shaw Thomas, UT-System Vice Chancellor of Academic and Health Affairs.
In the middle of the search the university encountered a hurdle as a temporary state-wide hiring freeze was implemented by Gov. Greg Abbott in January, which is scheduled to last up until August in order to free $200 million in the current budget. The university then filed an exemption to move on with the hiring of the new dean for the recently opened school and Bailey said they received the green light to continue moving forward.
“We were able to get exceptions from the governor for the medical school,” Bailey said. “We were also able to get exceptions for all of our student worker positions, and the governor also approved positions that directly affect students like recruiting and advising.”
For the dean position Bailey said the focus has been to find someone who has experience dealing with the nuances that arise in a newly created school.
“You look at these factors: If the person understands the accreditation process well, medical education, graduate medical education and residency programs, research and research infrastructure, clinical operations, affiliations with partner hospitals and practice plans,” he said. “Those seven areas are absolutely key.”
