What could have been an opportunity to focus solely on the accomplishments of the past two years instead became a forum for showcasing initiatives for the coming year at the School of Medicine.

On Jan. 29-31, a group of 75 representatives from the school, the university and the medical center’s two hospitals met for the school’s third annual strategic planning retreat. The purpose of the retreat is to examine how the school’s strategic plan, called “Translating Discoveries,” is being turned into actions that will put Stanford at the forefront of academic medicine.

“Everyone who attended seemed energized by our progress over the last two years,” said Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the medical school.

David O’Brien, the school’s director of institutional planning, said it is encouraging that so many faculty members continue to support the major directives of the strategic plan. “The plan is really beginning to take hold and become part of the culture of the medical school,” he said.

While many speakers described the accomplishments of the past two years, the bulk of the meeting was spent discussing plans for 2004, which include:

• Medical education – continued implementation of the new medical curriculum, incorporating residents and fellows into the scholarly concentrations, fostering excellence in teaching and strengthening the continuing medical education program.

• Graduate education – improving diversity of the student body, increasing the flexibility for first-year graduate students and strengthening interdisciplinary training.

• Residents and fellows – developing a customer-service-oriented administrative structure, providing research opportunities similar to the scholarly concentrations and developing a strategic plan for all trainees.

• Faculty affairs – developing strategies for managing available positions under the university’s cap on faculty size, transforming the Office of Academic Affairs into a proactive and consultative service function, and creating a leadership development program for all faculty.

• Finance and administration – reviewing the school’s operating, consolidated and capital budgeting processes; continued refinement of funds-flow formulas; and increased efforts to create programs that help employees with work-life balance.

• Information resources and technology – enhancing security of the school’s information systems, continued implementation of the school’s new Web architecture, developing an integrated wireless network and working on a translational research data repository.

• Public policy – providing lawmakers with input on key initiatives likely to come before Congress, and encouraging faculty members to become advocates (through speaking engagements and writing op-ed pieces) on issues they feel strongly about.

• Clinical enterprises – strengthening business relationships between the school and Stanford Hospital & Clinics; eliminating barriers between clinical departments by creating interdisciplinary clinical centers; enhancing the new pediatric faculty practice organization through programs to improve patient access, patient satisfaction, clinical facilities, and billing and contracting; and, as appropriate, incorporating some clinical-integration innovations at Packard into the relationships with SHC.

Other major initiatives for the coming year include further development and implementation of the school’s four Institutes of Medicine, which are interdisciplinary efforts to translate basic research findings into treatments that will benefit patients.

Retreat attendees also discussed issues that will affect the school and the hospitals in the years ahead, including: how to develop programs that better align the basic and clinical sciences; how to better serve patients in an environment controlled by larger health systems; how to better support basic investigation as well as clinical and translational research; how to clarify and extend the roles of the faculty given the cap on faculty size; whether a temporary or permanent second campus should be developed; and how to generate support from both public and private sources.

The dean said the ideas that arose during the retreat will be incorporated into the larger strategic planning process, which is focused on making Stanford a role model among research-intensive medical schools.