Reflections from the Chair

I was honored to be appointed the William Rocktaschel Professor and Chair of Family Medicine last July, after Dr. Thomas L. Campbell stepped down after 16 years of service to the department. We are grateful to Tom for his dedication and focus on strengthening the department.

During his tenure, the Family Medicine residency expanded to 12 residents per year, and fellowships in Sports Medicine and Maternal Child Health were added. Tom worked with the University of Rochester School of Nursing leadership to support and develop a Nurse Practitioner “Bridge to Practice” program, which became the foundation of our HRSA-funded Family Nurse Practitioner residency.

Tom and Dr. Susan McDaniel are internationally known for bringing family medicine and behavioral health clinicians together to approach the patient and family as a whole. They developed the longstanding collaborative practice between family medicine attendings, residents, nurse practitioners and family therapists and psychologists in the practice.

Our practice is a vibrant mix of traditional family medicine, group medical visits for chronic conditions, and substance abuse services, with integrated behavioral health available to all patients. We will be developing a refugee clinic under the guidance of Dr. Doug Stockman, and continuing to expand our walk-in clinical services to improve access for our patients.

Looking toward the future, my goal as chair is to recruit and retain additional research faculty to expand our research capacity, excellent clinician teacher faculty to expand our training programs including addiction medicine and rural training experiences, and with our renovation, to add more patients to our practice.

Together with committed senior leadership and a talented and dedicated faculty and staff, we will continue to improve our contributions to each mission area. The motto of the University of Rochester, Meliora –“Ever Better” is a guiding principle for our shared work!