Photo: Dean Hedges in the Native Hawaiian Healing Garden on the JABSOM Kakaʻako campus. Photo by Deborah Manog Dimaya.
By Kathleen Connelly, PhD, Contributing Editor, Hawaiʻi Journal of Medicine and Public Health
John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) Dean Jerris Hedges has successfully lead the University of Hawaiʻi medical school through two primary medical school accreditations, helped build a strong faculty practice plan, and expanded graduate education to neighbor islands. He continues to lead JABSOM as one of the top community-based medical schools in research and primary care. As of 2018, Dr. Hedges has held the deanship for over ten years. An interview with the dean reveals insights into his role as dean, and his vision for the future of the school.
Q: What draws you to the role of dean of the medical school?
A: The answer is multifactorial. We all seek to make a difference in the world and being a dean provides such an opportunity. Making a difference requires an organization with a great purpose (mission), exceptional people, and a culture that supports and celebrates personal and collective success. JABSOM has all these essentials and more. It is also an organization that has great collaborations and partnerships that are synergistic with the appointed responsibilities that come with the title. Being a dean was not an end of itself, but a means to provide exemplary service in an environment that is always changing and evolving. There are the interlocking missions of education, research, and clinical and community service. There is a duty to UH, teaching hospital affiliates, and the community at large. There is an increasingly challenging clinical practice arena which demands curricular adjustment for our students and trainees. These interdependent responsibilities provide constant stimulation and the need for diplomacy, innovation, and relationship building. None of these are easy and the school and its leaders must evolve. I chose JABSOM and Hawaiʻi in part for the academic and personal challenge, but also for the opportunity to share time with people who I admire and whose company I enjoy. Life is too short otherwise.
Q: What is your vision for the medical school, and has that changed over your tenure?
A: Shortly after my arrival, the JABSOM leadership and faculty members adopted shared values, a vision for the future and clarified the school’s mission. The vision fits the mnemonic ALOHA – Attaining Lasting Optimal Health for All. This vision emphasizes that our health goals for Hawaiʻi are long-term, that we are addressing optimization of health and not simply finding and treating disease, and that we seek to provide health to all in Hawaiʻi and the greater Pacific. This basic tenant has not changed, although the challenges we have faced and the strategy and tactics we have used to build ALOHA in Hawaiʻi have changed as the environment within UH and within Hawaiʻi has changed. We have increasingly partnered with other health science disciplines in service delivery and research. Ideally, UH would formalize a JABSOM-led health sciences leadership structure that builds synergy across the health sciences and brings additional extramural resources into UH. Such a structure at UH System could help UH achieve its “U-Healthy” Hawaiʻi goals as summarized by Aimee Grace, MD, (Director of Health Science Policy for UH System and JABSOM MD 2008 Alumna): to ensure a robust healthcare workforce (for Hawaiʻi), to discover and innovate to improve and extend lives, to promote healthier families and communities, and to advance health in all policies. The successful implementation of a trans-professional and inter-disciplinary multi-mission approach to the health sciences in Hawaiʻi will depend upon active engagement and leadership from JABSOM.
The full article can be read by downloading the December Issue of the Hawai’i Journal of Medicine and Public Health. There, you will find answers to Dr. Connelly’s additional questions, including: