Robert S.D. Higgins, MD, president of Brigham and Women's Hospital and executive vice president at Mass General Brigham, will leave his role in the Boston area to accept a new role in Chicago.
Dr. Higgins has taken a new role as president and chief academic officer at Rush University, and chief academic officer and senior vice president at Rush University System for Health, Mass General Brigham President and CEO Anne Klibanski, MD, said in an all-staff email shared with Becker's. He begins his new role in April and will, in the interim, transition from his Brigham role, a spokesperson confirmed.
"I've had the privilege and honor of serving my colleagues at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Mass General Brigham over the past two years as we've worked together to advance our mission of providing compassionate and high-quality care, pursuing research and innovation, educating the next generation of healthcare providers and supporting our local and global community," Dr. Higgins said in a statement shared with Becker's.
"I'm proud of the hard work that we've done together to advance our journey to become an integrated academic health system and look forward to watching the successes of Mass General Brigham in the future. I'm incredibly excited about the new opportunity before me in Chicago and returning to the place that my family and I call home," the statement continued.
Dr. Higgins has served in his current role since late 2021. Dr. Klibanski credited him with many accomplishments during his tenure, including playing a key role in advancing service line integration work, and more recently, in Mass General Brigham's work to plan for the future of Mass General Brigham Cancer. She also pointed to Dr. Higgins' efforts to create and nurture a diverse and inclusive culture at Brigham and Women's Hospital, as well as a historic $100 million gift during his tenure to establish the Gene Lay Institute of Immunology and Inflammation of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Klibanski said Giles Boland, MD, president of the Brigham and Women's Physicians Organization and executive vice president at Mass General Brigham, will serve as interim president of Brigham and Women's Hospital following Dr. Higgins' departure.
Before taking his current role, Dr. Higgins served as surgeon-in-chief at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Hospital and as director of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's surgery department.