KU School of Medicine dean accepts position at University of Minnesota

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Deborah E. Powell, executive dean of the School of Medicine and vice chancellor for clinical affairs for the University of Kansas Medical Center, has accepted an offer to become dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. The Minnesota Board of Regents will act upon the appointment next week.

"I am grateful to Dean Powell for the outstanding job she has done at KU," said Donald Hagen, executive vice chancellor at the KU Medical Center. "She provided an era of stability in leadership that has strengthened the overall effectiveness of the school. All of our programs are fully accredited, and she revised the curriculum to ensure relevance in the new millennium."

Hagen said that Powell strengthened the primary care physician education program, ensuring that every KU medical student has an opportunity to experience the practice of primary care medicine in rural Kansas. She also led the reorganization of the faculty clinical practice to ensure financial stability. She supported a significant increase -- approximately 50 percent -- in funded research, and she took steps to mentor, welcome and engage medical students in the profession.

"I will miss Dr. Powell," said Hagen, "and I wish her well in her new position. In order to continue the momentum of the KU School of Medicine, we will move quickly and decisively to name a successor."

"I've enjoyed my five years as dean at KU," said Powell, who also holds faculty rank as a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine. "I wish nothing but the best for my colleagues throughout the Medical Center. The opportunity to cap my career at Minnesota is very attractive to me, both personally and professionally. I believe I have a great deal to offer in this new position, and I will enjoy being closer to my family."

Powell's eldest son, Adam Carpenter, completed an M.D. degree last year at the University of Minnesota. He finished a one-year residency in psychiatry there and will begin a residency in neurology there this fall. Carpenter is the father of Powell's youngest grandson, Ben. Ben's mother, Pam Skinner, has a Ph.D. from Minnesota and is doing postdoctoral work there.

Powell came to KU in April 1997 from the University of Kentucky Medical Center, where she was a faculty member and administrator for more than 20 years. Her final position there was chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

Her background includes a B.A. degree from Radcliffe College at Harvard University and an M.D. degree from Tufts University. She completed residency training at Georgetown University Medical Center and the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health. She served on the faculty at Georgetown before moving to Kentucky.

Powell is a member of the NIH Advisory Committee on Research on Women's Health. In 2000, she led the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, the oldest and largest of the International Academy of Pathology's 54 worldwide divisions. That year she also was elected to the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, which advises the federal government on national health and science policy. At present, only nine of the 125 U.S. medical schools are led by a female dean.