Dear Members of the HMS and HSDM Community:

It is important that we periodically revisit the principles and statements that guide our community and our values. Consequently, I recently convened a committee to review and recommend updates to our Mission, Community Values, Diversity Statement, and Statement of Mutual Respect and Public Discourse.

Ably led by Joan Reede, Dean for Culture and Community Engagement, and Peter Howley, the Shattuck Professor of Pathological Anatomy in the Department of Immunology, and comprising a diverse set of representatives from our community, the committee’s charge is to ensure that these declarations continue to effectively articulate — to ourselves and to the world — who we are and who we strive to be as an institution and a community. The committee members will be sharing their suggested edits to our mission and community values for your feedback the first week of February, and I encourage you to engage in this process.

One of our core HMS principles is that we maintain a dynamic, synergistic partnership with our clinical affiliates. As health systems get larger and more complex, I am committed to modernizing our affiliation agreements, which were originally written in 1948, to continue to realize their original aims within the rapidly evolving context of academic medicine. The degree of change we’ve seen even in the past decade alone makes it imperative for us to foster greater dialogue, reaffirm our shared interests and mission, and identify how we can best work together to achieve maximal impact as a medical community.

Indeed, while medical education and health care delivery have both undergone significant transformation since the 1940s, it remains true to this day that HMS is strengthened immeasurably by the excellence of our affiliated hospitals and research institutes, and everyone in our community treasures the tradition of Harvard’s academic preeminence. We truly are better together.

Our affiliation agreements allow us to be aligned on a number of topics, including our commitment to the academic mission, the use of facilities, and the flow of modest funding. The agreements also address how HMS and the teaching hospitals work together.

On that note, I have heard from many faculty who have shared their concerns related to protected time for research and teaching, the reorganization of health care systems, and the idiosyncrasies of promotions and appointments. I am aware that communication, transparency, and a commitment to shared decision-making are the first steps toward earning trust and illustrating how we are working on our faculty’s behalf. I have already joined several departmental meetings and met with numerous faculty members and am committed to meeting with members of additional departments in the coming months. I encourage you to bring your thoughts and ideas to Faculty Council, as this body is designed to facilitate discussion and elevate important issues.

While I am referencing faculty, I am saddened to share that Dr. James Adelstein, the Paul C. Cabot Professor of Medical Biophysics, Emeritus, passed away on Jan. 16. He was 97.

During his nearly 20-year tenure (from 1978 to 1997) as HMS Executive Dean for Academic Programs, Jim worked with then-HMS Dean Daniel Tosteson to implement the New Pathway medical education curriculum and develop social science and preventive units and departments, including social medicine and health care policy. He also built the HMS Joint Program in Nuclear Medicine and was a preeminent researcher of the molecular and cellular effects of radiation, the radiation chemistry of biomolecules, the characterization of DNA damage from ionizing radiation, and targeted radionuclide therapy and imaging.

Jim’s work with Dean Tosteson brought HMS into the modern era and nucleated a strong sense of community across previously scattered institutions. As Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and former HMS Dean Joseph Martin told me: “Jim Adelstein’s imprint on Harvard Medical School was indelible. Indefatigable, always kind and thoughtful, full of common sense and good will, Jim anchored the School in the highest principles of veritas and intellectual rigor through easy times and difficult moments.”

Let us channel Jim’s spirit as we navigate easy and difficult moments alike and as we work together to build a strong future.

Sincerely,

George Q. Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Harvard University