October 13, 2013: Julie Freischlag, M.D., director of the Department of Surgery named dean of UC Davis School of Medicine

Dear Colleagues,

In January 2003, Julie Freischlag, M.D., was named the William Stewart Halsted Professor and Director of the Department of Surgery, and surgeon-in-chief of The Johns Hopkins Hospital—only the sixth person in the school of medicine's 120-year history to serve in this role, and the first woman to hold the position. It is with sadness as well as pride that we announce that Julie, who came to us from UCLA Medical Center, is now making her way back to the Golden State to continue her distinguished career as dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine.

Julie's last day at Johns Hopkins will be Feb. 14.  Jonathan Efron, M.D., the Mark Ravitch Chair of Gastrointestinal Surgery, will serve as interim director of the Department of Surgery.  

As director of surgery for over a decade, Julie spearheaded tremendous advances in the areas of patient safety, faculty diversity, research and education—contributions that will endure long after she departs. She also improved coordination among the hospitals' leadership teams and boosted surgical volumes. During her tenure, the number of operations performed by surgeons in the department of surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center rose 50 percent, from 9,190 to 13,770.

She oversaw the creation of the Center for Surgical Trials and Outcomes Research (CSTOR), which gives investigators the resources and training they need to pursue their study goals. Since 2006, National Institute of Health (NIH) grants to investigators in Johns Hopkins' department of surgery have increased more than 80 percent, landing the program in the top 15 in the country.

Julie made it a mission to improve patient safety. A key to reducing operating-room errors, she believed, was to improve communication among members of the surgical team. She worked together with the departments of nursing and anesthesiology to implement pre-surgery briefings to clarify team members' roles and post-surgery debriefings to analyze what could have been done better -- a system that has been used as a model by other institutions.

In addition to boosting the surgery department's performance, Julie transformed theculture by championing diversity. When she started as director, surgery residencies at most U.S. medical schools were not being filled because female, black and Hispanic medical students were choosing other specialties. Julie used her position to create a more inclusive environment here at Hopkins and recruit more women and minorities. About 30 percent of the department of surgery faculty is now female, and over the past two years, half of incoming general-surgery residents were women.

Julie is a renowned leader in her field, presently serving as chair of the Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons as well as president of the Society for Vascular Surgery and editor of JAMA Surgery. As surgeon-in-chief at Johns Hopkins and staff surgeon at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, she treats patients from around the world. She is an expert in thoracic outlet surgery, a procedure designed to correct a syndrome in which the blood vessels or nerves behind the first rib become compressed. She is also the principal investigator of the national OVER (Open Versus Endovascular Repair) trial, a multicenter VA study comparing the two methods of repairing abdominal aortic aneurysms. She has published more than 200 manuscripts and numerous book chapters.

Julie is a mother of three grown boys. The youngest, Taylor, as a child once asked her, "Mom, can boys be surgeons too?" After 11 years at Johns Hopkins, she says she is excited to take on this new challenge.

Please join us in thanking Julie for her extraordinary leadership and service to Johns Hopkins.

Sincerely,

Paul B. Rothman, M.D.
Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Ronald R. Peterson
President
The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System
EVP, Johns Hopkins Medicine