Iowa City-based University of Iowa Health Care and its Carver School of Medicine are searching for a vice president of medical affairs. They've narrowed the search pool to two finalists — and one is a retired public health official, The Gazette reported May 4.
Denise Jamieson, MD, is a retired captain of the U.S. Public Health Service; although she has no experience as a health system administrator, she told the university community that her CDC experience is transferable at a campus forum May 1.
In 2014, Dr. Jamieson led the CDC Medical Care Task Force for the Ebola response. She said the principles she learned at that job "are the same" as those needed in health system leadership.
"Those kinds of experiences have been really transformative in terms of understanding that you don't necessarily have to be the expert, but you better know the expert, and you better talk to the expert, and you better be comfortable with your knowledge and your plan," she said.
In addition to her public health experience, Dr. Jamieson has academic medical center experience, serving Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta as chair of the OB-GYN department. She believes that, like many academic medical centers, the University of Iowa needs to focus on recruiting and establishing community partnerships. She also emphasized the importance of culture and community outreach, particularly for rural health systems.
This is the UI Health Care's second attempt to find a vice president of medical affairs; the search relaunched in December after the initial attempts failed. Brooks Jackson, MD, currently holds the role, and has put off plans to step down and join the infectious disease faculty until a successor is named.