The following was adapted from Professor Lee Nadler’s remarks on September 28 at an event celebrating the unveiling of Jeffrey Flier’s official portrait.
I stood in this room for the first time in 1992, the year that I was promoted. I remember staring at these portraits and wondering what these men had achieved. We all lament that it does not take very long for our community to forget our accomplishments, thus reducing our legacy to a sentence.
We will long remember that Jeffrey Flier forced us to think and act beyond our traditional borders of inquiry. He created innovative programs to empower the next generations to embrace the evolving needs of local, national and global patients. Increasing numbers of students have chosen primary care and global medicine for both their scholarly projects and careers, and many have pursued conventional and unconventional dual degrees.
Our newly launched Pathways curriculum will guide future medical students through a personalized pathway, ensuring that they will become innovators and leaders. Two new departments—Global Health and Social Medicine and Biomedical Informatics—and the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science bring the HMS Quad faculty closer to their colleagues in our academic health centers, thus fostering our commitment to One Harvard.
Dean Flier forged a trans-Harvard academic health care center partnership to collaboratively train and sustain the next generations of clinical and translational investigators. Harvard Catalyst has succeeded in convening, connecting and catalyzing numerous innovative inter-institutional and interdisciplinary projects, with our trans-Harvard programs now being implemented across the nation. There is no question that Jeff forced us to think and act beyond our traditional borders of inquiry and will be remembered for his brilliance, selflessness and commitment to always doing the right thing.
