Appointment of Dr. Mark E. Anderson as Director of the Department of Medicine

Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to announce that Mark E. Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., the chair and department executive officer of internal medicine at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine and a renowned researcher on heart failure and sudden cardiac death, has accepted the position as the William Osler Professor of Medicine, director of the Department of Medicine in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and physician-in-chief of The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Dr. Anderson will assume these positions on August 15, succeeding Myron (Mike) Weisfeldt, M.D., who has held them with distinction since 2001.

A 1981 honors graduate in biology from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Anderson received his Ph.D. in physiology and his M.D. from the University of Minnesota. He then completed his internal medicine residency and fellowships in cardiology and clinical cardiac electrophysiology at Stanford before joining the faculty at Vanderbilt in 1996. In October 2005, he moved to the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and in 2009 was named chairman and department executive officer of internal medicine and in 2012 director of the Cardiovascular Research Center.

An outstanding scientist, teacher and caregiver, Dr. Anderson has focused his research on the role of the protein CaMKII (Ca2+/calmodulin dependent kinase II) in heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias, a cause of sudden cardiac death. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and book reviews, and has been an invited speaker throughout the United States and in more than a dozen nations.

Its major clinical accomplishments also include an intense focus on patient safety. This has led to marked improvements in hand hygiene, reductions in deep vein thrombosis, prophylaxis screening and the creation of a rapid response team, the Medical Intensive Care Unit Rehabilitation Pilot Project, the Sickle Cell Center, and the launch of our Comprehensive Transplant Center in collaboration with the Department of Surgery.

In addition, Dr. Weisfeldt made it his mission to enhance and enrich the overall performance of his department and The Johns Hopkins Hospital by increasing diversity among its residents, fellows and faculty. His outstanding efforts earned him the 2008 Diversity Award from the Association of Professors of Medicine.

We are grateful to Dr. Weisfeldt and confident that Dr. Anderson will ably lead the department as we face upcoming challenges and take advantage of new opportunities. We are thankful for the work of the selection committee, co-chaired by Landon King, executive vice dean, and Jonathan Lewin, senior vice president for integrated health care delivery and the Martin Donner Professor and Director of the Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science.

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