Roseman University of Health Sciences Appoints New College of Medicine Leadership Team Led by Dr. Pedro "Joe" Greer, Jr.
LAS VEGAS, June 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Roseman University of Health Sciences President Dr. Renee Coffman has appointed Pedro "Joe" Greer, Jr., MD as dean of the Roseman University College of Medicine.
Dr. Greer joined the University on June 1, 2020 with the goal of establishing an innovative mid-21st Century, Las Vegas-based medical school that will align students, educators, and community in designing and delivering an inclusive and collaborate environment for learning, healthcare and research.
Dr. Greer comes to Roseman from Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine (FIU HWCOM) in Miami, Florida. There he served as professor of medicine, founding chair of the Department of Humanities, Health, and Society, and associate dean for community engagement. Dr. Greer was one of the first to recognize the importance of training physicians in the social determinants of health, and he developed a unique educational program to address a critical gap in medical education.
"Dr. Greer is a nationally and internationally recognized advocate for health equity by engaging communities to create effective health and social policies and accessible health care systems," said Coffman. "He brings to Roseman and Nevada remarkable experience and expertise in spearheading the development of unique service-learning and community-dependent medical curriculum that prepares future physicians to address the social determinants of health, while simultaneously caring for individuals and communities through a household-centered approach to clinical care."
Joining Dr. Greer at Roseman are four additional faculty who participated in the founding of FIU HWCOM. Karin Esposito, MD, PhD will serve as senior executive dean for academic and student affairs; Marin Gillis, PhD, LPh will serve as senior executive dean for faculty affairs and learning innovation; Luther Brewster, MS, PhD will serve as senior executive dean for community health innovation and Cheryl Brewster, EdD will serve as senior executive dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The new team will join existing College of Medicine leadership that includes Bruce Morgenstern, MD, senior executive dean for clinical affairs; Thomas Hunt, MD, chair of family and community medicine and associate dean for clinical education; Kristina Connolly, assistant dean for finance and administration; and Victoria VanMeetren, special advisor to the dean.
The College of Medicine leadership will establish a community-dependent approach to improve the lives of Nevadans through the creation of innovative medical education curriculum, aggressive student pipeline development, commitment to diversity and inclusion, and focus on household-centered care.
About Dr. Pedro Greer
Dr. Greer has a national and international reputation as a leader medical education and health policy. Greer previously established the Department of Humanities, Health, and Society at the FIU HWCOM and spearheaded its nationally and internationally recognized interprofessional medical education program, the Green Family Foundation Neighborhood Health Education Learning Program (NeighborhoodHELP™). The innovative program prepares future physicians to assess and address the social determinants that impact health outcomes.
Additionally, Dr. Greer established Camillus Health Concern and Saint John Bosco health care centers for underserved populations in Miami, Florida. He has published over 25 articles and book chapters on topics from hepatic and digestive disorders to policy, poverty, health, and medical education in the United States. Dr. Greer wrote Waking Up in America, an autobiographical account about his experiences, from providing care to homeless persons under bridges to advising U.S. Presidents George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton. Dr. Greer is one of only three Americans that have received both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the prestigious MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship.
Dr. Greer serves in various capacities for national, state, and local organizations, including trustee at the RAND Corporation and current chair of the Pardee RAND Graduate School Board of Governors. He is a leading national and international health care visionary and among the most sought after speakers on the future of medicine. In October 2019, he presented at Roseman University's Future of Medicine Symposium.
Dr. Greer completed his medical studies at La Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra in the Dominican Republic. He trained in Internal Medicine, served as chief resident, and completed two post-doctoral fellowships (Hepatology and Gastroenterology) at the VA/University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, Florida.
About Dr. Karin Esposito
Dr. Esposito has extensive experience in medical education, research, and clinical management. At FIU HWCOM, she most recently served as executive associate dean for student affairs and professor of psychiatry and behavioral health. In her previous role as associate dean for curriculum and medical education, she launched the participation of FIU HWCOM in the Association of American Medical College's "Core Entrustable Professional Activities for Entering Residency" pilot project and was co-leader for FIU HWCOM's first American Medical Association "Accelerating Change in Medical Education" grant. While at FIU, Dr. Esposito was also the founding program director for the psychiatry residency at Citrus Health Network.
Dr. Esposito has held prior positions as the Associate Chief Medical Officer for Mental Health and Ambulatory Services at Jackson Health System in Miami, Florida, and she was on the faculty of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine for 10 years. Dr. Esposito received her PhD in biochemistry and her MD from the University of Miami and completed her residency training in psychiatry at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Her research interests have spanned basic and clinical research, education research, and hospital-based quality improvement research.
About Dr. Marin Gillis
Dr. Gillis is a philosopher, bioethicist, and award-winning medical educator. She leads national and international organizations dedicated to innovative, transdisciplinary, health professions education to develop critical and creative thinking and problem-solving skills, foster resilience, and cultivate a humanistic approach to clinical care. Her roles include international academic affairs director for the Cambridge Consortium of Bioethics Education and co-director of the affinity group for health professions educators at the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.
Dr. Gillis brings a successful track record of mentoring students and developing faculty from different professions and disciplines to collaboratively take a scholarly approach to health education and to develop their own research, at FIU HWCOM, the former University of Nevada School of Medicine (UNSOM), and the Mass College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS) in Boston. Dr. Gillis led national efforts to advance and support women in medical education and sciences, recently cycling off of a three-year term on the Steering Committee for the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Women in Medicine and Science (GWIMS) and serving as the Assistant Dean for Women in Medicine and Science at FIU HWCOM.
Dr. Gillis followed a double honors undergraduate program at the University of Ottawa, and holds graduate degrees from KU Leuven in Belgium (LPh) and the University of Calgary (PhD).
About Dr. Luther Brewster
Dr. Brewster has diverse expertise resulting from his academic and private sector experiences in leveraging community partnerships to yield returns for medical education, health organizations, the technology sector and economic development. In March 2008, he became faculty and Founding Chief of Policy, Research and Community Development at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. Dr. Brewster was also the Director of Green Family Foundation NeighborhoodHELP™ (Health Education Learning Program) where he oversaw the development of a partner network of more than one hundred community partners and the recruitment and retention of almost two thousand households to facilitate a novel community-based interprofessional service-learning curriculum. He was also co-founder of the FIU-Aetna Health Policy Analysis Academy, a joint venture with the Aetna Foundation and the Pardee RAND Graduate School to develop health care organization "value propositions" by translating curricular strategies into commercial products and services aimed at addressing the social determinants of health. Dr. Brewster is a graduate of Morehouse College and received his PhD in Health Promotion & Behavior from the University of Georgia. He completed his postgraduate training in Health Impact Assessment and Urban Renewal at Queen Mary University of London.
About Dr. Cheryl Brewster
Over the years Dr. Brewster's work has focused on engaging with underserved communities in addressing health disparities related to myriad chronic diseases along with bias in healthcare. She has worked a in number of cities including New York, Atlanta and Detroit and most recently Miami. Her commitment to ensuring cultural humility in healthcare has spanned well over 25 years.
In 2010, Dr. Brewster joined FIU HWCOM at which she was the inaugural associate dean for diversity and inclusion and associate professor. She was charged with providing leadership to the dean to enhance the culture of the college by developing and overseeing a comprehensive diversity plan to include goals, policies and practices as they relate to administrators, faculty, staff and students.
Her dedication expands into her service as she currently serves on numerous boards including being a member of the executive committee for a federally qualified health center located in Miami and the national organization Building the Next Generation of Academic Physicians (BNGAP), an organization specifically founded in 2010 to address the lack of underrepresented faculty in academic medicine. Dr. Brewster received her EdD from Columbia University and her MA in counseling from Clark Atlanta University.
About Roseman University of Health Sciences
Founded in Henderson, Nevada in 1999, Roseman University of Health Sciences is a non-profit, private institution of higher learning training the next generation of undergraduate and graduate level health care professionals that serve, collaborate and set new standards in their communities and within their professions. With campuses in Henderson and Summerlin (Las Vegas), Nevada and South Jordan, Utah, the University is comprised of the College of Dental Medicine, offering an Advanced Education in Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics/MBA residency and Doctor of Dental Medicine program; College of Pharmacy, offering a Doctor of Pharmacy and Professional Continuing Education; College of Nursing, offering a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Science in Nursing/Family Nurse Practitioner; and an MBA program. Roseman University of Health Sciences will also offer a Doctor of Medicine through its College of Medicine, once it becomes accredited. More than 6,000 Roseman graduates are caring for patients, conducting research, and engaged in public health and policy in Nevada, Utah and across the country. Roseman University is regionally accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.
SOURCE Roseman University of Health Sciences
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