In one of his earliest messages shortly after he arrived in 2009, David S. Guzick M.D., Ph.D., commented that the synergies of an integrated academic health center can only be fully realized if we work together.

The then newly minted senior vice president for health affair sat UF and president of what we now know as UF Health cited Andrew Carnegie, who once said that ‘teamwork is the ability towork together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon
results.’”

From those early days through a nine-year tenure that has left a legacy of unprecedented progress, Guzick worked to  obilize faculty, staff and students to align the mission, vision, values and finances of our health colleges, research centers and institutes, and hospitals, while simultaneously drawing the academic health center even closer to the university as a whole.

Dear Friends,

I write to share news that later this fall, Danette and I will move to Salt Lake City, Utah, where I will join the faculty of the University of Utah as Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, Dean of the School of Medicine, and Chief Executive Officer of University of Utah Health.

Transitions are bittersweet. The University of Florida and Gainesville have shaped our lives for over 34 years since we arrived here in the summer of 1984 to begin training in anesthesiology. We take so many wonderful memories with us. Our five children were born and raised in Gainesville, as was the Human Patient Simulator. We have had the opportunity to connect with so many gifted and compassionate individuals, working together every day to improve the lives of patients, students, communities and one another.

The Human Patient Simulator could only have been born at the University of Florida. In the 1980s, I was given the unique opportunity to work with a team of engineers and physicians, who rallied together to design, build, test, refine, patent and license a lifelike learning form that enables meaningful experiential learning across the educational spectrum. Today, there are thousands of HPSs in use around the world, helping learners master a large array of basic and advanced professional skills. At the VA in the 1990s, we were early adopters of balanced quality scorecards to measure and improve patient care, smoothly rolled out the VA’s then-novel Computerized Patient Record System, and successfully competed for two national VA research center of excellence awards.

During the past 10 years while serving as your dean, we have advanced excellence in each of our missions. Because of your tremendous compassion, skill and expertise, patients and their families drive by and fly over other health care providers to receive care from you at UF Health. Clinical growth has been robust, with ambulatory practice visits, hospital admissions, surgical procedures and emergency department visits all increasing 70 percent or more. Significant improvements have been achieved in quality of care and patient safety. Over the past decade, we have built and activated many new primary care offices, multispecialty care centers, freestanding emergency rooms and hospital bed towers. Our second Springhill facility will open its doors next month; new clinical space at the Oaks Mall and a new facility for Movement Disorders are coming in 2019.

Our research and education programs have seen similar advances, with NIH research funding awards to college faculty increasing from $61 million to $102 million (+67 percent) annually, and total extramural grant support now approaching $250 million. The UF medical education curriculum has been modernized, and a new, state-of-the-art medical education facility, the George T. Harrell, M.D., Medical Education Building, built with the generous philanthropic support of our college alumni and friends. Medical student outcomes are strong, with nearly 30 percent of UF medical student graduates placing into residency training programs associated with top 10 medical schools. Initiatives to advance the diversity of the student body have been successful.

I have had the privilege of signing a historic number of diplomas and certificates, including over 1,300 medical degrees, 600 physician assistant degrees, 300 graduate degrees and 2,000 resident and fellowship certificates. Each represents a unique individual, now Gator alumnus, providing much-needed health care and scientific research in our state and nation. Our college faculty family now numbers over 1,400 strong. Twenty-five department chairs have been recruited and appointed over the past decade, and three of our department chairs are now deans at U.S. medical schools. I was honored to work with Florida legislators on many issues, including increased funding to the UF medical school, and to lead statewide efforts to assure Medicaid patients had access to high-quality specialty care.

Together in 2016, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the UF College of Medicine and memorialized our impressive legacy of innovation and collaboration in a commemorative history book (https://alumni.med.ufl.edu/60thbook/). I now look forward to using that volume to help me remember all the wonderful people who have blessed our lives and the many shared experiences of the past three-and-a-half decades.

I know this announcement comes at a time when many of you are concerned about the path forward, as decisions now need to be made about two pivotal senior leadership roles. Together we have accomplished so much. Yet I am truly confident you will achieve even more in the months and years ahead. Our shared values and vision — hardwired into who we are here at UF Health — will endure and will propel this fine academic health center forward anew. The momentum you’ve built will continue because of your lasting commitment to our patients, our students and each other, and because this great university, which recognizes the importance of our missions and respects what we’ve collectively accomplished, will ensure it does.

For each of us, the path of life takes many twists and turns, some anticipated, some not. It is always difficult to select a new trail when the current one has been so reliable and fulfilling. But personal and professional growth are often found on new trails, and so from time to time, it is important to avail oneself of a new opportunity. As we embark on our new journey to the west, we take with us our many Florida friendships, and fond memories of the special people that make the University of Florida a very special place. There is much we will miss, but never forget.

— Mike and Danette Good

UF Health neurosurgeon Brian L. Hoh, M.D., an internationally known expert in the treatment of brain aneurysms, brain arteriovenous malformations, and ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, became chair of the Lillian S. Wells Department of Neurosurgery in the University of Florida College of Medicine on July 1. He succeeded longtime chair and neurosurgical pioneer William A. Friedman, M.D., who will continue on as a practicing neurosurgeon and faculty member.

Trained and educated at Stanford University, Columbia University and Harvard University, Hoh is only the third chair in the four-decade history of the department, following two giants in the field: Friedman, a pioneer in the early development of a now commonly used noninvasive neurosurgical treatment called stereotactic radiosurgery, and before him, the late Albert L. Rhoton Jr., M.D., considered the father of neurosurgical anatomy and microneurosurgery, a technique involving microscopes and microsurgical instruments Rhoton designed for maximum precision that are now used worldwide.

“I’m incredibly humbled and honored,” said Hoh, the James and Brigitte Marino Family Professor in Cerebrovascular and Endovascular Neurosurgery and current associate chair of neurosurgery. “I’m hoping to stand on the shoulders of these giants and create a department that my mentors would be proud of.”

When Hoh joined UF in 2006 after completing neurosurgery training and a fellowship in interventional neuroradiology at Massachusetts General Hospital of Harvard University, UF Health Shands Hospital treated only 150 stroke patients a year and didn’t have a stroke center. Hoh recruited a team of stroke neurologists and cerebrovascular/endovascular neurosurgeons to build what is now the UF Health Shands Comprehensive Stroke Center — certified by The Joint Commission — which treats about 1,000 patients a year from across the Southeast.

Hoh is a National Institutes of Health R01-funded principal investigator who studies the biological mechanisms of brain aneurysm formation and rupture and how to use tissue engineering technology to improve aneurysm treatment.

An award-winning teacher, Hoh has served as UF’s neurosurgery residency program director, one of the best of its kind in the U.S. He established and served as director of UF’s fellowship in endovascular surgical neuroradiology, one of only two in the U.S accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

As chief of the division of cerebrovascular surgery, Hoh oversees a team that treats ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, brain aneurysms, AVMs, carotid and intracranial atherosclerosis, cavernous malformations and moyamoya disease.

David S. Guzick, M.D., Ph.D., who stepped down in July as the senior vice president for health affairs at UF and president of UF Health, said the department of neurosurgery has played a vital role in the academic health center’s rise in stature.

“Dr. Hoh’s knowledge and expertise will allow UF Health to successfully build on a foundation of excellence in providing premier care to patients suffering from brain disorders and to make scientific discoveries that will improve treatments for residents in the Southeast and beyond,” Guzick said.
Hoh is focused on elevating the department to Top 5 status nationwide for clinical care, research and education — an effort he terms “Destination UF Neurosurgery.”