UF has named a new senior vice president for health affairs and president for the UF&Shands Health System.
Beginning July 1, Dr. David Guzick, the dean of the School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Rochester in New York, will replace Dr. Douglas Barrett to run the world-renowned hospital's health care system and UF's Health Science Center.
Guzick said his first priority will be patient care, but "everything else follows," referring to the Health Science Colleges and Shands impact on patient care.
"It's very exciting," Guzick, 57, said. "My job is to try to individualize areas of concern and stimulate people to come together who wouldn't have before."
Barrett, who will step down from the position after seven years to return to clinical practice as a pediatric immunologist, said one of Guzick's biggest challenges will be recruiting the next dean for the College of Medicine, as well as for the College of Public Health and Health Professions.
Guzick will also have to manage the health science center and health affairs "through tough economic times," Barrett added.
Guzick, a reproductive endocrinologist, is an internationally recognized expert in women's health and epidemiology and operates the College of Medicine and Dentistry in Rochester under a larger budget and larger hospital than he will at UF's Health Science Center and UF&Shands.
"I think one of my strengths is that I don't have an agenda," Guzick said, referring to the fact that he wants to look for the best possible option. "As dean, I have bent over backwards to support different areas (in the College of Medicine and Dentistry)."
Guzick began as dean in Rochester under a similar situation UF is in now, when the University of Rochester had a separate academic and hospital facilities, he said.
"It was the next step in a logical progression," Guzick said. "Coming to Florida presented the same type of opportunity that I took part of in Rochester."
Guzick earned his graduate degree in economics and mathematics at New York University. He also received his medical degree and a Ph.D in economics at NYU.
Before completing a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, he completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Johns Hopkins.
"You can't think of another hospital (Shands) that has reached so far," he said.
