Introducing the P&S Strategic Planning Initiative
Dear Colleagues:
I am pleased to announce that the College of Physicians and Surgeons has launched a comprehensive strategic planning process to chart the course for the future of our great medical school.
The new strategic plan, which we expect to complete this academic year, will build on our school’s extraordinary historical foundation of exceptional people who have been integral to P&S and our success, including the many outstanding faculty members and staff who have joined us recently.
Our planning begins at a time when our clinical practice, research programs, and educational initiatives are thriving. Last year, our clinical practices grew by 7%. Our NIH grants increased by 6%, even while the NIH budget fell by 1%. Our students had their best internship match in 15 years, and this year’s yield rate on accepted applicants was our highest in 30 years. New donations to P&S last year topped $200 million, by far our best year ever. The energy and creativity across our campus are inspiring, and this manifest success is a great base upon which to build even further success.
To begin the planning process, a strategic planning steering committee, as well as four task forces (Clinical Care, Research, Education, and Campus Life) and two subcommittees, Translational Research and Student Life, have been assembled. We are partnering with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and all of Columbia University to identify ways to optimize our goal of being indisputably in the top five and arguably the best in our educational, research, and clinical programs. Our overall planning effort is being coordinated by AMC Strategies, a firm that specializes in the development of strategic plans for academic medical centers.
I encourage you to participate in the planning process by getting involved. Your comments and suggestions are vital to the success of the planning process, as our vision, collectively, will define our medical school of the future.
My hope is that generations to come will appreciate how decisions made today enabled significant advances in health care, research, and education at P&S.
I look forward to planning the future of P&S with you.
Lee Goldman, MD
Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine and
Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Columbia University