Dear Colleague: 

Hello Colorado. I am honored to join you to serve as the next Dean of the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs for CU Anschutz Medical Campus.

This is a remarkable time in medicine, and we are well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities presented to us. CU Anschutz is a successful academic medical center with record growth during the past 20 years. My goal is to lead us to the top 10 in the next 10 years.

We start in a good place. Compared to our peers, we have new facilities, a growing medical practice, strong clinical partners, and generous support from our community. With these secure fundamentals, we must continue to attract exceptional people and provide a rich environment for them to excel at their work. Passionate people perform.

To put such passion into action, our campus must encourage and reward innovation. We intend to build on the infrastructure that translates discoveries into therapies. These include CU Innovations and our campus clinical trials programs. We also want to encourage more partnerships with industry.

Most importantly, our workplace must nurture productive relationships in a culture of belonging. As Dean, I will give relentless focus to issues of such scope because they are vital to our school’s continuing growth.

I thank everyone for the warm welcome. We are going to do many great things together, and I look forward to fulfilling our common goal of providing better care for our patients and each other. I plan to continue the weekly message because it is an important gathering place for us to address matters of schoolwide concern and to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of our colleagues.

Have a good week,

John H. Sampson, MD, PhD, MBA
Richard D. Krugman Endowed Chair
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and
Dean, University of Colorado School of Medicine