Rein Saral Named Senior Associate Director Of Winship Cancer Institute

Emory University
Tuesday, 25 November 2003

In a move aimed at bolstering the growth and development of Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute, oncologist Rein Saral, MD, director of The Emory Clinic, will take on new responsibilities as senior associate director of the WCI effective December 1.

In this new position, Dr. Saral will work with WCI Director Jonathan Simons and other WCI leadership to develop the infrastructure needed as the WCI expands its interdisciplinary inpatient and outpatient care programs, taking advantage of a newly opened $84 million building, and moves forward with its goal of becoming Georgia's first National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center within the next five years.

The Winship Cancer Institute is an interdisciplinary organization, reaching across all divisions of Emory's Woodruff Health Sciences Center. A key responsibility in Dr. Saral's new position will be to work with the academic and clinical leaders in Emory Healthcare, the School of Medicine, the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, the Rollins School of Public Health, and beyond. Currently the active membership of the WCI includes faculty from all three schools, clinicians from 14 sections of The Emory Clinic, and researchers at Emory's Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory College.

Dr. Saral will continue to spend half his time as Clinic Director until September 2004, by which time a new physician director will have succeeded him. In September, Dr. Saral will take on another half time role as associate medical director for Emory Hospitals, including Emory University Hospital, Emory Crawford Long Hospital and Wesley Woods Geriatric Hospital.

Both the WCI and Hospital positions are new, and both take full advantage of Dr. Saral's strengths and experience as a successful administrator and as a physician scientist, says Dr. Michael M.E. Johns, executive vice president for health affairs at Emory and CEO of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center.

"Over the past decade, Rein Saral has moved The Emory Clinic from a group of clinical practices in separate silos to a highly integrated clinical practice," says Dr. Johns. "He oversaw the transformation of the Clinic from a referral only institution to one accepting patients without referral, and from a for-profit partnership, affiliated with but not part of Emory University's Woodruff Health Sciences Center, to a nonprofit corporation that serves as the cornerstone of Emory Healthcare."

"Furthermore," adds Dr. Johns, "Rein did this with dignity and grace, in one of the most tumultuous healthcare environments most of us have ever known."

Dr. Jonathan Simons, Director of the Winship Cancer Institute, adds, "We're very excited about Rein joining us. He will be a tremendous resource in the midst of our rapid growth, and we look forward to drawing on his experiences as a physician and leader of physicians, a researcher, and builder. Given our own plans, it's particularly exciting that he has served on the NCI cancer centers branch studies section and was one of the chief architects of the successful growth of the NCI Comprehensive Cancer at Johns Hopkins before his recruitment to Emory."

Dr. Saral will retain his title as Professor of Hematology and Oncology and of Medicine.

He said he is proud of the Clinic and its accomplishments during his ten years as director, but added, "I also look forward to returning to my roots in medical oncology and to playing a greater role in the hospitals. I'll be working with extraordinary people, with the opportunity to do extraordinary things."

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Grinnell College, where he was captain of the football team, Dr. Saral earned his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1969 and completed a residency in internal medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He then completed a three year research program with the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolic, and Digestive Diseases, National Institutes of Health, before returning to Hopkins in 1974, eventually becoming Clinical Director of Hopkins' bone marrow transplantation program. After arriving at Emory in 1991 to direct Emory's bone marrow transplant program, he quickly transformed it into the largest in the Southeast. He was elected director of The Emory Clinic in 1993 by a unanimous vote of the Clinic partners.

The Emory Clinic is the nonprofit group practice of approximately 700 Emory School of Medicine faculty physicians. It is the primary point of access to Emory Healthcare and constitutes the largest, most comprehensive group practice in Georgia.

For more information, or to contact Emory University, see their website at: whsc.emory.edu