Etc.: Last Word

On the trajectory-moving up from average

By Giuseppe Colasurdo, M.D.

Dr. Giuseppe N. Colasurdo

Applause broke out in the faculty meeting I was attending. Our medical student scores were in – they ranked at the national average.

Average. True, it could have been worse, but to me, average is not something to boast or brag about.

The University of Texas Medical School at Houston is not average. It is not mediocre. It is filled with excellent students, scientists, physicians, administrators, and support staff making a difference every day in patients’ lives.

We have great opportunities and ambitions to harness our individual talents and energies to improve our collective outcomes. It is time for us to come together and overcome average. Through benchmarking the best and studying other institutions, we will achieve our fullest potential.

We dare not benchmark average. This is a dangerous trap. We aim to hold ourselves up to the highest regards in all areas of our mission – education, research, and patient care – and blaze new trails of innovation.

Embarking upon this exciting and important journey, we must have all hands on deck. Faculty, staff, students, and our clinical partners, Memorial Hermann System and the Harris County Hospital District, are key to this process. We also will enlist the help of those whom we emulate and will model ourselves upon – the Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinics, the Harvards.

And we will need your help – your ideas, your time, your support. In order to be the best, it will take all of us working together as a team pooling our resources and talents.

This spirit will develop into a culture of excellence that will pervade throughout the Medical School and seep into all facets of our work. This feeling translate into results that will be self-sustaining as the best faculty and employees will want to work in such a successful environment, promoting retention and recruitment efforts. We have so many gifted people in our school, and these individuals should be empowered to work together and enrich our intellectual environment in various ways.

Please join me on this quest for the best, as we say so long to average.

Giuseppe Colasurdo, M.D., is dean of The University of Texas Medical School at Houston and holder of the H. Wayne Hightower Distinguished Professor in the Medical Sciences.