Nancy Oriol, shown here with students at White Coat Day in 2013, is stepping down as dean for students. Image: Steve Lipofsky
Nancy Oriol, shown here with students at White Coat Day in 2013, is stepping down as dean for students. Image: Steve Lipofsky
As of July 1, several changes will take place in the leadership ranks for medical education at HMS. On that date, Nancy Oriol, HMS associate professor of anaesthesia at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, will step down as dean for students.
Oriol has mentored HMS students for 19 years—12 as dean and seven as associate dean for student affairs. She will next serve as the School’s faculty associate dean for community engagement in medical education.
Fidencio Saldaña, an HMS assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, will succeed Oriol as dean for students.
Saldaña has served as faculty assistant dean for student affairs in the Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs since 2010 and was a leader in shaping the Pathways curriculum, serving as director of Patient-Doctor II and co-director of the new Practice of Medicine course.
Another familiar longtime presence, Ronald Arky, the Daniel D. Federman, M.D. Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at Brigham and Women’s, will leave his post as advisory dean and director of the Francis Weld Peabody Society, after nearly 30 years of mentoring students.
Arky has contributed to the design of both preclinical and clinical curricula and was instrumental in the creation of the Cambridge Integrated Clerkship and in the development of combined degree programs such as the MD/MBA.
To commemorate his tenure as the last remaining original academic society leader appointed by Dean Tosteson in 1987, Arky is establishing an endowed society advisor position, the Arky Family Associate Director and Advisor of the Francis Weld Peabody Society. Beverly Woo, HMS associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s, will be the inaugural incumbent.
Arky will be succeeded as advisory dean and director of the Peabody Society by Bernard Chang, who is an HMS associate professor of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess, one of the architects of the Pathways curriculum, and a nationally known researcher in epilepsy.
The advisory dean and director of the William Bosworth Castle Society will also be stepping down.
Orah Platt, an HMS professor of pediatrics and a hematologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, has lead the Castle Society since 1998. Her work in hematology is reflective of the work of the society’s namesake, who made the observation that a factor, dubbed the intrinsic factor, was necessary for the absorption of vitamin B12.
Platt’s own research focuses on thalassemia and sickle cell disease. She has defined the epidemiology of sickle cell’s major complications and has studied the sickle red-cell membrane in an effort to find new therapies.
Jennifer Potter, an HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess and director of the Women’s Health program at Fenway Health, will succeed Platt as advisory dean and director of the Castle Society.
