Health Science Center leader to step down

The leader of the University of Florida Health Science Center, Douglas J. Barrett, M.D., will step down from his position at the end of the current academic year.

Barrett, UF senior vice president for health affairs, has held the post since 2002. A pediatric immunologist, he said he intends to return to clinical practice and teaching on the pediatrics faculty in the College of Medicine beginning July 1. He said he also plans to spend more time advocating for children's health services.

University President Bernie Machen, who announced Barrett's decision at a UF Board of Trustees meeting March 14, said he will immediately form a search committee to identify a successor and will make an interim appointment to the position this summer if it becomes necessary.

Barrett, a former UF chairman of pediatrics who guided the department to national prominence before becoming vice president, jokingly attributed his decision to a "six-year attention span."

"For whatever reasons, my career has naturally divided into six- or seven-year increments," he said. "There's a part of me that likes to focus intensely on the job at hand and then, at a certain point, I recognize it's time to move on to the next challenge and let someone else have a go at it.

"Although I think we've made significant progress in six years, there's much more that can and should be done to advance our academic health center in what has become an extraordinarily challenging environment for institutions such as ours. That responsibility deserves to have someone who brings fresh vision and the commitment of their whole heart and soul to it."

Barrett joined the UF in 1980 as an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics' division of immunology/infectious disease. In 1986, he became chief of the division of immunology and transplantation, and in 1991, he was appointed chairman of pediatrics and the Nemours Eminent Scholar. Under his leadership, the department was a consistent winner of medical student teaching awards and enjoyed a 10-fold increase in National Institutes of Health research funding.

During his tenure as vice president, Barrett has worked to better align the activities of UF's College of Medicine and its hospital partner, Shands HealthCare, as a well-coordinated clinical, educational and research enterprise with an emphasis on high quality, highly specialized medical services. He was instrumental in developing a formal academic support agreement under which Shands provides annual financial support for medical school educational and research activities. He was an advocate of co-branding patient-care services broadly under a newly developed joint identity, UF&Shands. And he was a key figure in the decision to build a specialty hospital focused on cancer services. Construction of the cancer hospital will be completed next year.

"I believe we have a better understanding today of who we are, what our mission is, and what we can become as a fully realized academic health center, and none of this would have been possible without the support of President Machen," Barrett said.

In the research arena, Barrett has overseen a building boom that is dramatically increasing laboratory space at the Health Science Center, one of his key objectives. The list of projects includes the 280,000-square-foot Cancer & Genetics Research Complex completed in 2006 and the 90,000-square-foot Biomedical Sciences Building currently under construction. Ground was just broken for a pathogens research facility and a new small animal veterinary hospital is not far behind. These expanded facilities were the result of team efforts with faculty, deans and senior UF administrators, he said.

Barrett said he feels he's leaving the Health Science Center administration with a strong set of leaders in place. They include the deans of the six health center colleges and the directors of several research centers and institutes, most of whom were appointed during his tenure.

"Without a doubt the greatest satisfaction this job holds is the opportunity to work with enormously talented, energetic and creative people who are committed to helping patients and students through their teaching, their clinical practice and their research, and to doing all that with the highest standard of excellence," he said. "This job has challenged me to grow in so many ways that I never could have imagined. I'll always be grateful for that opportunity."