Dean's Update
September 19, 2025 - Aron Sousa, MD
Above: (l-r) Supratik Rayamajhi, Aron, Dean’s Scholars, Karen Kelly-Blake, Andrea Wendling.
Friends,
Although my calendar is getting lighter, I still get to do the fun parts of this wonderful job. Take this last Tuesday as an example: a group of faculty mentors and academic leaders met with the 12 new Dean’s Scholars at Cowles House. The program is designed to help the college recruit outstanding students who often receive major scholarships from other medical schools. We know there are remarkable applicants who love the College of Human Medicine, but our scholarships just do not do enough to defray the costs. We repurposed some discretionary funds to make this endowed program possible. My thanks to Karen Crosby and Brad Kline, who, between them, have led our finance office for most of the last 20 years for creating this model. My thanks, too, to Karen Kelly-Blake, PhD, director of the program, Andrea Wendling, MD, senior associate dean for academic affairs, and Amber Heard-Booth, PhD, assistant dean for admissions, for designing and implementing the program.
After a week of emotional events, it was so joyful to gather faculty and these students together at Cowles House to meet each other, learn about each other’s interests, help form the cohorts of students and mentors, and generally have the kind of evening that is supposed to be normal at a medical school. Almost all of us stayed to close the event. It was so simple: faculty, students, some food, a reason to be together, and that was enough to create joy.
I should say we have a lot of good and impressive news right now:
- Check out the new funding milestone and programs at the Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health.
- The Rx Kids team published some very important results in the American Journal of Public Health and SSRN this week. The data shows a near elimination of evictions in the first year of life, reduced maternal depression, reductions in preterm birth, improvement in birth weight, and a subsequent reduction in neonatal intensive care unit admissions. The program is powerful medicine.
- The six new departments we have been working to implement for three years now have non-interim, regular chairs! Congratulations to Chairs Ellen Air, MD, PhD; Steven Chang, MD; Ben Movsas, MD; David Ozog, MD; Craig Rogers, MD; and Richard Zarbo, MD. Our College Advisory Council is working on a proposal for these departments to be joint with the College of Osteopathic Medicine. My thanks especially to Carol Parker, Brad Kline, and Nara Parameswaran in the dean’s office for getting this over the finish line. I hope there will be a party for these folks!
- The college and Corewell Health have successfully recruited a new researcher together. That kind of hire is not easy, but we are getting better and better at it in West Michigan. We are excited to welcome Miriam Vos, MD, MSPH, one of the world’s experts in childhood liver disease to the college, Michigan, Grand Rapids, and Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital.
And there was one other piece of normalcy to enjoy this week. It has been confirmed that the federal government will continue the Medicaid enhanced funding program, which helps provide access to care for patients on Medicaid across the state. All the state’s medical schools participate in this program and it helps keep providers and hospitals closer to whole when they see patients with Medicaid. The program was not terminated, and it continues to be in the budget. The money was simply not flowing for the last three quarters, and the hiatus appears to be over.
One of my joys this week has been watching the dean’s office and the college come together in support of our incoming interim dean, Supratik Rayamajhi, MD. I am, admittedly, biased, but I think the college has the best dean’s office team since I joined the dean’s hallway back in 2005. Don’t get me wrong, we have had some spectacular people on the team over the years. In fact, the highest density of capacity in the dean’s hallway was probably when Denise Holmes sat by herself in her office. Still, it makes me feel good that people are coming together as Supratik moves through the transition. If my schedule is getting lighter, you know that means his is getting harder. Thanks to Supratik for taking this on, and my thanks to all of you for supporting him.
Serving the people with you,
Aron
Aron Sousa, MD, FACP
Dean, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine