Pamela Sass, M.D. appointed Chair of SUNY Downstate Dept. of Family Medicine
Dr. Pamela Sass, currently Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, has been appointed Chair of the Department of Family Medicine, succeeding Dr. Miriam T. Vincent.
Over the past two years, Dr. Sass has demonstrated an extraordinary level of dedication and competence, according to Carlos N. Pato, Dean of the College of Medicine. Dr. Sass served as Acting Dean from September 2014 to July 2015 in addition to her ongoing responsibilities for the undergraduate medical education curriculum. Throughout her career, Dr. Sass has been able to bring together diverse teams of faculty to create innovative approaches to some of the most important issues facing the school and academic community. Even more remarkably, she has been able to lead the often even more difficult implementation processes that followed, overcoming a host of practical obstacles both large and small.
We are all especially indebted to Dr. Sass for her many years of work in the creation of a comprehensive new undergraduate curriculum, which incorporated ideas derived from within the College, from other colleges and schools on the campus, and from the larger national community of medical and health care professional education. It is no exaggeration to state that the successful implementation for this curriculum—and the management systems that it incorporated—were essential to our successful pursuit of full accreditation from the LCME.
Dr. Vincent should also be recognized for the considerable accomplishments of the Department of Family Medicine under her direction. Dr. Vincent has moved to a senior leadership position in an institutional effort to adapt to major changes in the health care delivery system in our community. Both of these two outstanding leaders deserve our full support as they take on their new roles.