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Jeff Balser, MD, PhD<\/p>\nAfter nearly two decades serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of Vanderbilt Health and Dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Jeff Balser, MD, PhD, will retire from both leadership roles on Dec. 31. A national search for his successor, who will hold both leadership roles, will be led by the Vanderbilt Health Board of Directors.<\/p>\n
Jeff Balser, MD, PhD<\/p>\n
Balser\u2019s announcement culminates a career-long journey that began at Vanderbilt in the mid-1980s as a medical student and doctoral dual degree candidate. With degrees in hand in 1990, he departed for a residency in anesthesiology and fellowships in cardiac anesthesiology and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he joined the faculty in 1995. At Johns Hopkins, he was a cardiac anesthesiologist and surgical intensivist who led a National Institutes of Health-funded research program aimed at genomic causes of cardiac rhythm disorders. \u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1998, Balser was recruited back to Vanderbilt as a clinician, investigator, and as the first associate dean for Physician-Scientist Development, beginning a series of successively responsible leadership roles. In 2001, he was named the James Tayloe Gwathmey Professor and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology. In 2004 (during an era when Vanderbilt Health used academic leadership titles), he became the associate vice chancellor for Research, leading the Medical Center\u2019s research growth agenda.<\/p>\n
In 2008, Balser became the 12th Dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) since the school\u2019s founding in 1875. In addition to his responsibilities as dean, he also served as associate vice chancellor for Health Affairs, with continued oversight for Medical Center research.<\/p>\n
In 2009, at age 47, Balser was appointed to the Medical Center\u2019s top role, vice chancellor for Health Affairs, making him the youngest person to ever hold this position. Setting another institutional precedent, for the past 17 years he has continued to serve in both roles, as the Medical Center\u2019s chief executive and medical school dean. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As Balser took the helm of Vanderbilt Health, the U.S. economy was in one of the greatest financial crises since the Great Depression, caused by the collapse of the home mortgage industry. At that point, the Medical Center had $2.3 billion in annual net revenues, 16,000 employees and 2,100 full-time faculty, and its cash reserves were depleted.<\/p>\n
Relentlessly optimistic despite many challenges facing the Medical Center, the nation\u2019s health care industry and the overall economy, Balser said to a gathering of Medical Center leaders at the time, \u201cWe will work hard. We will accomplish a great deal, and we will do it as a team. I need the support of everyone here.\u201d<\/p>\n
By every measure, the past 17 years have been transformative for Vanderbilt Health and VUSM. Today, Balser leads an organization composed of an internationally recognized eight-hospital health system with more than 2,000 beds and 200 ambulatory locations across five states, caring for more than 4 million patients each year. Vanderbilt Health\u2019s workforce now exceeds 45,000, including 5,000 employed clinicians and scientists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Medical Center and its many unique assets are a treasured resource for people across Tennessee and throughout the region. Through his vision and initiative, Dr. Balser has led an era of remarkable growth in facilities, programs and services that will have a lasting impact on the lives of generations of patients and their families,\u201d said Edie Carell Johnson, JD, chair of the Vanderbilt Health Board of Directors. \u201cOn behalf of the board, I want to express my gratitude to Jeff for his decades of service in support of the Medical Center\u2019s mission.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the outset, Balser understood the value of frequent communication and has by now spoken before thousands of meetings, assemblies and forums, as well as having authored hundreds of first-person \u201cRounds\u201d messages in an era before his now frequent videos for all employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Medical Center\u2019s scientific discoveries, training programs and clinical advancements are responsible for numerous institutional strengths, such as the Vanderbilt Transplant Center becoming the world\u2019s leading center for heart transplants and solid organ transplants in aggregate; being home to the Southeast\u2019s highest-ranked children\u2019s hospital and the nation\u2019s fifth largest neonatal intensive care unit; the Mid-South\u2019s largest National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center; and the principal Level 1 trauma center in Tennessee and one of the busiest in the nation. Vanderbilt Health is also home to the region\u2019s largest health professions training center with more than 1,300 physicians training in 200 specialties.<\/p>\n
Pivotal to Vanderbilt Health\u2019s explosive growth was the effort Balser led with Vanderbilt University leadership during 2015-2016 to legally and financially separate Vanderbilt Health from the university, allowing the Medical Center to become its own nonprofit entity while still maintaining close ties between the two institutions that continue to fuel academic excellence and scientific discoveries.<\/p>\n
In this independent structure, Vanderbilt Health\u2019s campuses have expanded from two to six as net revenues have grown more than threefold to $9 billion annually, while days of cash on hand, a measure of organizational financial health, have increased from 50 to more than 110, with total cash on hand and investments now exceeding $3 billion. Over two decades, Vanderbilt Health\u2019s discovery portfolio has grown to nearly $1 billion in research grants and contracts. Total National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding over the last two decades has grown significantly, from 24th at the turn of the century to now repeatedly ranking in the nation\u2019s top 10, landing \u00a0seventh at the end of 2025 despite federal slowdowns in grant awards.\u00a0<\/p>\n