Dean Miller Comments in JAMA

Dr. Edward D. Miller, Dean of the School of Medicine and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, is co-author of an essay in the April 8, 2009 issue of JAMA titled “A Single Mission for Academic Medicine: Improving Health.”  Dr. Miller and his co-author, Dr. Paul Ramsey of the University of Washington, write on the mission of academic medicine, suggesting that mission statements that express the tripartite goals of teaching, research and clinical care can contribute to or reflect an environment where these three aims are viewed separately.

The separate territories that then develop are prone to compete against each other for limited resources instead of cooperate on a achieving a common aim. The alternative expectation that each faculty member excel in each of the three arenas they find equally untenable. The authors argue that returning to the original, singular mission of improving health can provide a touchstone by which to refocus the three facets of modern academic medicine and value each, to the benefit of both the academy and the patient.

The full text of Drs. Miller and Ramsey’s article can be accessed here:   
Ramsey PG and Miller ED. A single mission for academic medicine: improving health. JAMA. 2009;301(14):1475-1476.