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KU executive dean elected into Institute of Medicine

LAWRENCE--Dr. Deborah E. Powell, executive dean of the University of Kansas School of Medicine and vice chancellor for clinical affairs, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM).

As a member of the prestigious medical society, Powell will be a part of the think-tank that advises the federal government on national health and science policy. The IOM also provides advice to the corporate sector, the medical industry and the general public.

She will be inducted into the institute during its annual meeting next October in Washington D.C.

"Dr. Powell's election into the Institute of Medicine is a tremendous honor and reflection of her national reputation," said KU Chancellor Robert E. Hemenway. "This honor also reflects KU's commitment to being a leader in the biosciences for the state of Kansas, the greater Kansas City area and the nation."

Powell's election puts her among elite company. Among the 60 new members elected to the IOM with Powell this year are Antonia Novello, the first female and Hispanic to be appointed Surgeon General of the United States, Donna Shalala, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Jane Henney, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Henney also has a strong connection to KU. She was vice chancellor for health programs and policy at the KU School of Medicine from 1985 to 1992, as well as its interim dean from 1987 to 1989.

With the election of the new members, the IOM's active membership is now 613. The institute also elected five new senior members and five new foreign members, bringing its overall total membership to 1,380.

Powell is one of just 161 females and one of a handful of pathologists in the IOM. She is also one of only five IOM members from Kansas- and the state's first inductee since 1977.

Being a trailblazer is nothing new to Powell. She is one of only five female medical school deans in the nation - and the first permanent female executive dean at the KU Med School.

"It's a huge honor for the KU Med School to have two institute members on its faculty - that's highly unusual," Powell said. "It's not only symbolic of the fact that the Med School has excellent faculty, it also is really important for the state."

The other IOM member on the KU Med School faculty that Powell was referring to is her close friend and colleague, Dr. Barbara Atkinson, . Atkinson, chair of pathology and laboratory medicine and director of the resident program at the KU Med School, has been a member of the IOM for three years. She was elected into the institute while working in Philadelphia.

As someone familiar with the responsibilities that come with membership into the IOM, Atkinson said Powell would fit right in.

"Dr. Powell is certainly a very clear thinker and members tend to pick the brightest and hardest-working people," Atkinson said. "It's really an incredible honor because you get elected by people who are already in the institute."

Although it is too early to determine what role Powell will play in the IOM, she said she hopes to utilize her strengths as a pathologist, medical educator and cancer researcher.

Recent reports from the IOM include "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System," which focuses on preventing medical errors -- the fifth-leading cause of death in America -- and "America's Health Care Safety Net: Intact but Endangered," which explains how competition and cost issues in today's health care marketplace are posing serious challenges for the nation's poor and uninsured.

Powell earned her bachelor's degree at Radcliffe College at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., in 1960, and her medical degree at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, in 1965. She completed her residency in training in pathology at Georgetown University Medical Center and the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health. She is board certified by the American Board of Pathology in Anatomic Pathology. Earlier this year, Powell was named president of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, the oldest and largest of the International Academy of Pathology's 54 worldwide divisions.