A Message From President Daniels: Dean/CEO Edward Miller to retire next year

Dear Colleagues:

We are about to witness the end of an era. Dr. Edward Miller, the Frances Watt Baker and Lenox D. Baker Jr. Dean of the School of Medicine and the first chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine, has informed me that he intends to retire, effective June 30, 2012.

Dr. Miller was appointed dean, CEO and the university's vice president for medicine in 1997 after serving on an interim basis since the year before. His tenure has been nothing short of extraordinary.

Those of us who are not on the East Baltimore campus every day nevertheless see evidence of Ed's transformative influence any time we drive along Orleans Street. The new hospital towers that have risen there over the past few years are visually stunning; more important, when they open next year, those towers will enable the men and women of Johns Hopkins Medicine to elevate to a new level of excellence the expert and compassionate care for which they are so justly famous.

As critical as the towers will be to the future of Johns Hopkins Medicine, however, they represent but a fraction of Ed's accomplishments. Under his leadership, and that of his outstanding executive partner, Ron Peterson, we have welcomed four new hospitals to the Johns Hopkins family.

We have helped to make first-class health care available throughout the world through partnerships in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Recently, Ed signed an agreement to help Malaysia develop its first private, integrated medical school and teaching hospital.

Back at home, we have introduced a new medical curriculum that anticipates the future practice of medicine. It trains physicians to promote health and provide care based on our rapidly expanding knowledge of the human genome. Under Ed's guidance, our faculty has enhanced our worldwide leadership in basic and clinical research, focusing on the areas where the need is the greatest and the opportunities most promising.

Ed has represented Johns Hopkins and academic medicine brilliantly in the national debate over the future of health care. He has been a forthright and ardent advocate for a system that makes sense for patients. He has expanded our engagement with the Baltimore community.

Ed has done all this, and so much more. Fortunately, we will have many opportunities in the months ahead to more adequately recognize all his contributions to Johns Hopkins and to medicine. I look forward to joining with you on those occasions to celebrate his legacy.

In the meantime, I have set in motion the process for identifying Ed's successor as dean and CEO. I have asked Francis B. Burch Jr., incoming chair of the board of Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Provost Lloyd B. Minor to co-chair the search for a leader who will be every bit as forward-thinking and effective as Ed has been. We will be back to you soon with more information.

Sincerely,

Ronald J. Daniels