College of Medicine Dean to be Interim VP for Health Affairs

Jack Battenfield, Associate Vice President

College of Medicine Dean Kenneth Berns, M.D., will be the interim Vice President for Health Affairs when David Challoner, M.D. leaves his position on September 1st.

UF President John Lombardi announced the appointment Saturday to the Board of Overseers, an advisory group to the UF Health Sciences Center. “Dr. Berns is an outstanding national figure in Health Care, he supervises the largest College in the University of Florida, and he has the respect of his colleagues,” Lombardi said Monday. “With his colleague deans of the health center colleges, he can help us identify the future directions and structure of the HSC.”

Berns said he looks forward to the challenge. “It will be important to continue to dovetail the efforts of the health sciences colleges to insure synergy and stability as we move through the transition period,” Berns said…”Serving in a leadership role as a coordinator while simultaneously working alongside my fellow deans as a collaborator are roles which make this change both challenging and intriguing.”

Challoner, head of UF’s Health Science Center for 16 years, is launching an institute aimed at putting the state at the leading edge of biomedical research. The institute, to be located on the UF campus, will encompass programs dedicated to advancing the growth of science and technology and to helping the state capitalize on the national economic bonanza forecasted in the biomedical sciences.