Johns Hopkins Alumni Award
Ronald R. Peterson, president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine, has received The Johns Hopkins University’s Distinguished Alumnus Award. The award honors alumni who have typified the Johns Hopkins tradition of excellence and brought credit to the university through their personal accomplishments, professional achievements or humanitarian service. Peterson, a 1970 graduate of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, began his Johns Hopkins Hospital career as an administrative resident in 1973, served successively as administrator for the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, the Johns Hopkins Cost Improvement Program, the Children’s Medical and Surgical Center, and president of what now is Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center from 1982 to 1999. He became president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System in 1997 and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine in 1998.
New Johns Hopkins Medicine International EVP
Mohan Chellappa, M.D., president of global ventures and a founding member of Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI), has been named executive vice president. In this additional role, Chellappa will serve as JHI’s second in command, ensuring that JHI continues to expand the Johns Hopkins Medicine mission globally. Chellappa, who led JHI in an interim capacity during its recent leadership transition, has been involved in developing JHI’s consulting business since 1997 and has been key in establishing more than 50 mission-driven engagements around the world. He currently serves on the board of Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare in Saudi Arabia.
New Surgery Director
Robert S.D. Higgins, M.D., M.H.S.A., has been appointed the new William Stewart Halsted Professor of Surgery, director of the Department of Surgery and surgeon-in-chief of The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Higgins, a heart and lung surgeon, will join the faculty on July 1. He currently is at The Ohio State University, where he is professor and chairman of the Department of Surgery, surgeon-in-chief, director of the comprehensive transplant center and head of research at OSU’s Wexner Medical Center. He is a 1985 graduate of the Yale School of Medicine and earned a master’s degree in health services administration from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Bloomberg Professorships
The school of medicine has had three new faculty members appointed as Bloomberg Distinguished Professors, receiving endowed chairs established in 2013 with a landmark $350 million gift from Johns Hopkins alumnus Michael R. Bloomberg ’64. The new Bloomberg Distinguished Professors are microbiologist and immunologist Arturo Casadevall, M.D., Ph.D., biomedical informatics expert Christopher Chute, M.D., Dr. P.H., and computational biologist Steven Salzberg, Ph.D. Casadevall previously served as director of the Center for Immunological Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. He also will become head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the school of public health. Chute spent 27 years at Mayo Clinic, where he established the Division of Biomedical Informatics. He also will be on the faculty of the schools of public health and nursing. Salzberg is director of the university’s Center for Computational Biology, a member of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, and on the faculties of the schools of public health and engineering.
East Baltimore
Michael Choi, M.D., associate professor of medicine and clinical director of nephrology, has received the National Kidney Foundation’s 2015 Garabed Eknoyan Award. Choi was also named to the foundation’s board of directors.
Mahadevappa Mahesh, M.S., Ph.D., associate professor of radiology and chief physicist of The Johns Hopkins Hospital, was elected to the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.
Timothy Pawlik, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., professor and director of the Division of Surgical Oncology, has been named deputy editor of JAMA Surgery (formerly Archives of Surgery) and associate editor of the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery. He also has been awarded an honorary fellowship in the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
Brigitte Sullivan, M.B.A., administrator for the Division of Transplantation, has been elected head of The Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland, which encourages state residents to save and enhance lives through organ and tissue donations that honor the legacy of the donors. She is also the secretary of the board of directors of the National Kidney Foundation of Maryland.
Sumeska Thavarajah, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, has been named head of the medical advisory board of the National Kidney Foundation of Maryland. She also has received the foundation’s 2015 Linda Cameron Award for Patient Services.
Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center
Charles Cronauer, director of finance, has been named a fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association. The 40,000-member association has named only 1,800 individuals as fellows in its 68-year history.
Lisa Jibril has been promoted to manager of patient experience. Previously an ambulatory social worker, she has 16 years of experience coordinating discharge planning services and completing psychosocial assessments for patients. In her new role, she will work with the medical center’s leaders to fulfill its patient- and family-centered care strategic goals.
Potomac Home Health Care
Owned jointly by Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., and Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, Potomac Home Health Care, a nonprofit, full-service, Medicare-certified home health agency, was recently given the highest rating of deficiency-free care following an unannounced survey by The Joint Commission. Potomac Home Health Care provides a comprehensive range of services to homebound patients in the Washington metro area.
Johns Hopkins Medicine International
Tokyo Midtown Medical Center, which has been affiliated with Johns Hopkins Medicine International for almost a decade, has achieved Joint Commission International accreditation for its ambulatory care program. It is the second ambulatory care program in Japan to receive such an honor and the first Joint Commission International-accredited ambulatory care program among Johns Hopkins Medicine’s global affiliates.