By Erin Prather Stafford

Dr. J. Gregory Fitz, chairman of internal medicine, has been named dean of the
UT Southwestern School of Medicine and provost of the medical center, effective Oct. 1. He also will serve as executive vice president for academic affairs at UT Southwestern.

The appointment culminates an extensive national search carried out by a committee of senior UT Southwestern academic leaders that identified Dr. Fitz as superbly suited to provide the academic leadership needed for UT Southwestern to achieve its full potential.

	Dr. J. Gregory Fitz

“It’s an extraordinary time to be involved in medicine,” Dr. Fitz said. “I look forward to being more involved with the medical students and assisting with their preparation for the challenges they will face as physicians.” 

Dr. Fitz is a world-renowned hepatologist who joined
UT Southwestern in 2003 and currently holds the Donald W. Seldin Distinguished Chair in Internal Medicine. He brings to these new responsibilities a record of outstanding academic leadership and significant accomplishment as an investigator and clinician.

“I know that Dr. Fitz and I hold a shared vision of this institution’s scientific, educational and clinical missions and potential,” said Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky president of
UT Southwestern. “We also share a commitment to building on
UT Southwestern’s extraordinary heritage of discovery and innovation, while driving even greater levels of achievement and excellence in the basic sciences and in the clinical enterprise.”

Immediately prior to coming to UT Southwestern, Dr. Fitz served as head of the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and before that as professor of medicine and director of the gastroenterology fellowship program at Duke University Medical Center.

His international stature in the field of hepatology is reflected in his recent selection to serve as future president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the leading international society committed to hepatology.

A national search will be initiated as soon as possible to select a new chair for internal medicine. Dr. Helen Hobbs, director of the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development at UT Southwestern, will chair the search committee. An interim department chair will be named in the near future to lead internal medicine upon Dr. Fitz’s transition to his new position.

“This is an incredible opportunity to build on UT Southwestern’s past, while realizing the future role our institution can play nationally and internationally,” Dr. Fitz said. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that UT Southwestern School of Medicine maintains its reputation as one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation.”

Dr. Charles Ginsburg, who has served as interim medical school dean, will return to his position as senior associate dean when Dr. Fitz assumes his new role.