Autumn is in the air, and football is on many people’s minds. KU’s national ranking has attracted much attention.
We are certainly proud of the team, and its success reminds us that KU makes big plays in the classroom and breakthroughs in the laboratory as well.
We have one more such accomplishment to celebrate. The University of Kansas Hospital, governed by the KU Hospital Authority, is now ranked with the likes of the Mayo Clinic and Brigham and Women’s Hospital when it comes to patient care.
The University HealthSystem Consortium, an organization of 97 academic medical centers led by former KU Hospital president Irene Cumming, has placed the hospital in the top five for quality and accountability in its 2007 report. This is a prestigious group and I am extremely proud that KU Hospital is included among these fine institutions.
I especially want to congratulate the staff of KU Hospital, including the KU School of Medicine faculty physicians who contribute to this success. These doctors, along with the talented and dedicated nursing staff, are one of the reasons KU Medical Center is establishing itself as a premier academic medical center in the United States. With KU Hospital’s continued commitment to excellence, I’m confident our stature and reputation will continue to improve and patients will travel great distances to receive their care at KU.
The strength of the KU Hospital greatly adds to KU’s growing reputation as a center of research and teaching in the many different fields critical to modern health care.
KU’s School of Medicine was recently named first in the nation when it comes to training family physicians, an important accomplishment during a time when many areas of Kansas are facing a shortage of doctors and other health professionals. I want to especially thank our School of Medicine in Wichita for making an immense contribution to this No. 1 ranking.
Research under way today by the faculty and staff of the School of Medicine will turn into the treatments of tomorrow that will benefit the patients at KU Hospital, and every other hospital and doctor’s office in the nation.
The School of Pharmacy has consistently ranked in the top three for funding from the National Institutes of Health. This enables its faculty to conduct research into the next generation of “miracle drugs” while at the same time teaching the students who will help alleviate a looming shortage of pharmacists.
Thanks to these and other accomplishments, the KU Cancer Center is making solid progress toward earning a National Cancer Institute designation as a comprehensive cancer center – a feat that will bring new treatments and eventually cures closer to the 13,000 Kansans diagnosed with cancer each year.
Finally, it isn’t just our health-focused schools and departments that are a part of KU’s medical research. Faculty members in the School of Engineering are now applying for NIH grants to conduct research in the growing field of bioengineering. This and other endeavors hold great promise for developing new ways to improve not just the length of patients’ lives, but their quality of life as well.
All of these, ultimately, are aimed toward improving the lives of patients. Helping them live longer, healthier and happier lives is the goal of all of the health professionals working at KU.
So while we celebrate our teams’ successes on the field, let’s be sure to not forget the victories won every day by our KU and KU Hospital colleagues who are making Kansas a healthier place, one student, one discovery and one patient at a time.
Sincerely,
Bob Hemenway
Chancellor
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