Contact: Kay Albright, University Relations Wichita, (316) 293-2643.
Editor's note: Meek is a Hiawatha native.
WICHITA--Joseph C. Meek, M.D., dean of the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita for ten years of its 25-year history, has announced he will retire next year.
Meek will step down June 30, 2001. A committee headed by Alex Ammar, M.D., chair of the Department of Surgery in Wichita, will conduct a nationwide search for a successor.
"We are a unique campus and I wanted to give enough notice for an effective search," Meek said. "Community-based medical schools are a rare commodity in the United States, and the leadership challenges are different than at a traditional academic health center."
The School of Medicine-Wichita is the clinical campus for the KU School of Medicine, which is part of the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.
The Wichita school provides education and training for about 100 third-and fourth-year medical students who have completed two years of basic science courses at the KU Medical Center. Instruction is offered in seven major disciplines, including family and community medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, obstetrics-gynecology, preventive medicine and surgery. Elective programs are available in anesthesiology, pathology and radiology. Medical students are supervised by more than 50 full-time and nearly 60 part-time faculty members. There also are about 600 volunteer faculty members who donate their time to train future doctors.
Meek is one of the few medical school deans in the U.S. who also has an active medical practice. He holds a subspecialty certificate in endocrinology, and plans to continue a practice after he retires.
Before becoming dean, Meek was a professor and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine from 1985 to 1990. A Hiawatha native, he received his medical degree from KU. Meek had a fellowship in endocrinology and metabolism at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, LaJolla, Calif.
Meek said he thinks his legacy is the total integration of the School of Medicine-Wichita and the community.
"I think we have eliminated any aspect of the town vs. gown relationship. We are Wichita," he said. "We've now become one of the models people use for developing a community based medical school."