We've successfully completed system-wide strategic plans for our research and clinical missions and are developing another for education. And in a short time, the center has taken steps beyond what we ever imagined:

• Identified a core of excellent, highly productive researchers, but lack a critical mass of investigators in larger program projects or institutional grants.
• Approved plans to build new labora-tory research space, a nursing school building, and a new cancer center.
• Focusing on research support activities, including positioning ourselves to "compete vigorously and creatively" for a larger share of federal dollars targeted to biomedical and behavioral research. Opportunity appears ripe as Congress considers substantial NIH increases and tobacco company settlements promise a windfall for research. Faculty can provide leadership nationally and at home in recommending how to allocate new funds.
• Increased Yerkes funding by 61%, added an outstanding AIDS vaccine team, broke ground for a new vaccine center and other research programs, and are developing a novel medication for cocaine abuse.

• Continued consolidation of Emory and Crawford Long hospitals.
• Restructuring The Emory Clinic into an integrated part of Emory healthcare.
• Developing a convenient, highly differentiated metro Atlanta delivery network for primary, secondary, and tertiary care, built around a geographically dispersed, multispecialty group practice.
• Worked toward a merger with Wesley Woods to strengthen our elderly and chronic care capabilities.

From the Director

Closing the AIDS Loop

Stronger Together
In Changing Times

David Blake: Catalyst
for Strategic Planning

Making Primary Care
a Primary Focus

Meeting the Needs
of the Elderly

High Stakes under
the Gold Dome

Clinic Restructuring Further
Unites Emory Healthcare

In Praise of Staying Focused

• Challenged faculty to develop new models of cross-disciplinary health professions education, as the medical school begins a comprehensive review of its educational programs, the nursing school nears approval for a new doctoral program, and the School of Public Health revises its curriculum.
• Successfully recruited several new faculty and department leaders in the School of Medicine.
• Continuing to be innovators and leaders in education. Putting together a faculty and student exchange program with the medical, dental, and nursing schools of the Guy's, Kings College, and St. Thomas hospitals in England. Developing relationships in the Far East and Africa to provide access to disease populations not in North America.

Faculty and staff have an important role in securing the health sciences center's future success, and Johns urged his audience to take the initiative. "Dare to look into uncharted territory. We have been blessed with the ability, gained through much hard work, to bring together the resources, the expertise, the human resources - and just plain good sense - to seize hold of our own destiny and formulate a leadership agenda."

For the full text of the State of the Health Sciences speech, see the Momentum Web (available only to users accessing the Internet via the Emory networks). Video copies available in the hospitals' libraries, through the health centers (778-5939), or through the Health Sciences Communications Office (727-5686).