Why We Are Here 
At the Center for Innovative Medicine, we feel like the luckiest doctors and scientists in the world. We have been granted an exciting, unprecedented opportunity to help patients by changing how we work together. The Center for Innovative Medicine exists because a few caring, thoughtful people wanted to help us make a difference.
The first of these is Mrs. Aliki Perroti, whose generosity is evident throughout this website. Another remarkable figure in our story is Mrs. Anne Miller. I have the privilege of being her doctor now, but my predecessor in caring for her was a tough act to follow – Phil Tumulty, one of the greatest physicians and teachers ever, a legend at Hopkins and worldwide, for whom the practice of medicine was as much an art as a science. Mrs. Miller asked me a very simple question: "Why aren't there more Dr. Tumultys? Why are they so rare?" The Miller family gave us the money to start a lecture series to celebrate Phil Tumulty and the qualities that make an excellent physician.
But this was only the beginning. Mrs. Miller's question lit the match, in effect, to a bonfire that had been building up around here for quite some time. It seemed to us very clear that some academic medical centers have lost their footing. Instead of putting the patients first, the patients came in somewhere after grants, national rankings, prestigious discoveries, and other measures of success. But Dr. Tumulty taught that the ultimate measure of success is the patient's well-being. Our only real goal should be improving the lives of our patients, and teaching doctors and scientists to do the same.
The history of Johns Hopkins, from its very beginning, is a story of fortunate convergences -- the right people coming together at the right time -- and this is exactly what happened next. Richard Paisner and I went to see Bill Brody, the President of The Johns Hopkins University, to talk about funding several projects designed to help our patients get better care. Instead, he told us, "Go and create a center. Think about what an academic medical center can and should do. Focus on the ways in which academic medicine needs to be restructured." For the last two years, this is exactly what we have been doing.
On this website, you'll find all the issues of Breakthrough, and the name of this new publication is important. It's not just scientific breakthroughs, although there are plenty of exciting ones happening here every day. It's a breakthrough in thinking and in focus. We see our mission as one of stewardship, as guardians of the public trust that is academic medicine. The opportunity itself is an honor, and we owe it to you, who have done so much to make it possible, to see it through wisely.
If I had to sum up what the Center for Innovative Medicine is all about in a nutshell, I would say, "Practicing and teaching medicine the way it should be done." We do this in countless small ways, and in three big ways: One: The patient comes first. Two: Collaboration -- among doctors and scientists, among divisions and departments, between the hospital and the community, between physicians and nurses. We try hard to tear down ivory towers and fiefdoms whenever we find them. And three: Wise use of technology. Making the most of the remarkable advances available to us, in a thoughtful, creative way. And all of this happens for one reason -- so that we can make life better for patients.
David B. Hellmann, M.D., M.A.C.P.
Aliki Perroti Professor of Medicine; Vice Dean, Johns Hopkins Bayview
Medical Center; Chairman, Department of Medicine |
