Cal Med Names Dr. Robert Suskind Founding Dean

Dr. Robert Suskind, who has served as a founding dean at two medical schools during a career as a pediatrician and health care educator spanning more than 50 years, has been named founding dean of the California University of Science and Medicine (Cal Med), a new, non-profit allopathic (M.D.) medical school based in Colton. Cal Med, the brainchild of Dr. Dev GnanaDev, a longtime surgeon and nationally recognized leader in health care and health care education, expects to welcome its first class in 2017. Cal Med is being financed primarily through a large donation from Prime Healthcare Foundation, a non-profit public charity founded by Dr. Prem Reddy, a cardiologist, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Dr. Suskind, known for his expertise in building academic programs, comes to Cal Med from California Northstate University College of Medicine in Elk Grove, Calif., and the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine in El Paso. He served as founding dean at both of these institutions. “We are very pleased to have Dr. Suskind as our founding dean,” said Cal Med Founding President and CEO Dr. GnanaDev, who led an exhaustive national search for Cal Med’s first dean. “He is considered among the best in developing new medical schools, including their curricula and faculty, and preparing them for the rugged process of accreditation. “We feel strongly that Dr. Suskind will help us to position Cal Med as a school that will develop top-quality physicians to serve our community for many years to come.” Dr. Suskind’s first order of business is to recruit and hire approximately 25 core faculty members and prepare Cal Med for Liaison Committee Medical Education (LCME) accreditation. The LCME is the only body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education with accrediting authority for allopathic medical schools in the United States and Canada. As staff is developed, Dr. Suskind will oversee the implementation of a special “clinical presentation-based” curriculum. First developed by Dr. Henry Mandin at the University of Calgary, clinical presentation-based learning teaches aspiring physicians how to think like doctors starting in their first day as medical students. This curriculum features a full integration of the basic and clinical sciences with the basic sciences being taught as systems, rather than disciplines. Thus, a student studies the basic sciences as they relate to systems, rather than disciplines. Dr. Suskind, who will also serve as Vice President of Medical Affairs and Professor of Pediatrics and International Health at Cal Med, formerly was dean of the Chicago Medical School. In addition to his extensive experience as a dean, Dr. Suskind has been a chair of pediatrics for more than 20 years and has published more than 150 scientific articles and six textbooks, all related to the nutrition of infants and children. Dr. Suskind views his new position with Cal Med as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to develop a medical school from “the ground up.” “We are taking a wonderful idea that Dr. GnanaDev hatched years ago and building from the ground up,” said Dr. Suskind, who earned his doctor of medicine from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “This poses special challenges as it is in early stages of development, but it also provides special benefits because it enables us to develop the school so it meets the needs that are specific to our community.”