Newswise — Alistair R. Erskine, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, has been appointed associate dean for medical informatics in the VCU School of Medicine, effective Aug. 1.
Erskine will provide leadership, direction and support for the application of information systems to medical education and biomedical research, while continuing his activities in the Department of Internal Medicine, MCV Hospitals and the VCU Health System.
Erskine graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, received his medical degree from VCU and completed a residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at Brown University. He is board certified in internal medicine and pediatrics and was appointed to the faculty of VCU in 2004. He has served as the chief medical information officer for the VCU Health System as well as a board member of the Health Information Technology Standards Committee and Health Information Technology Advisory, the latter two appointments made by the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
“Biomedical Informatics has become intercalated with most medical research initiatives and yet health sciences informatics training to date has lagged behind,” Erskine said. “The development of tailored exposure, understanding and emersion of applied clinical informatics throughout the medical curriculum experience has become a priority for VCU School of Medicine students.
“Through standard curriculum content to innovative educational domains using simulation and virtual patient data warehouses, the role of the associate dean of medical informatics involves converging research and clinical operational informatics agendas with a new contemporary predictive curriculum for tomorrow’s physicians,” he said.
Jerome F. Strauss III, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the VCU School of Medicine, said, “this new administrative position recognizes the advanced state of information technology in the School of Medicine and the VCU Health System. It prepares the school and the health system to move quickly to evaluate and adopt new platforms as well as to develop in house powerful new tools to improve clinical care and education and to support clinical research.”
About VCU and the VCU Medical Center: Virginia Commonwealth University is a major, urban public research university with national and international rankings in sponsored research. Located on two downtown campuses in Richmond, VCU enrolls more than 32,000 students in 211 certificate and degree programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Sixty-nine of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU’s 13 schools and one college. MCV Hospitals and the health sciences schools of Virginia Commonwealth University compose the VCU Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers. For more, see www.vcu.edu.
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