Dear Colleagues,
This year’s Four Deans’ Lecture Series keynote left me energized and inspired about the future of health care and the role our academic community must play in shaping it.
We were honored to welcome Dr. Szczepan Baran, a veterinary scientist, technologist and leader whose career has spanned pharmaceutical innovation, digital transformation, AI driven drug development and academic research. His keynote "AI at the Nexus: Reimagining Health in a Rapidly Changing World" had a clear message: progress in medicine begins with asking the right questions.
Dr. Baran invited us to consider that our biggest challenge in health care is not technology itself, but how clearly we define the problems we are trying to solve. He shared powerful examples from his personal life and professional work, illustrating how technologies like AI, wearables and predictive analytics can transform outcomes. These resources are most successful, however, when grounded with a clearly defined problem to solve, ethical decision-making and multidisciplinary collaboration.
What resonated most with me was his emphasis on the intersection of empathy and innovation. Whether describing the difficulty of objectively measuring his mother’s chronic pain, the missed opportunities to use wearables for loved ones or the striking difference an early sepsis alert can make when paired with a nurse’s timely action, Dr. Baran reminded us that people, not algorithms, remain at the center of care.
He also challenged us to recognize our responsibility as educators, researchers and leaders. AI tools are evolving rapidly, but the health care system is not yet designed to fully absorb them. Dr. Baran urged us to teach students how to define problems before reaching for technological solutions, to collaborate across schools and professions and to ensure that as these tools advance, our values, ethics and commitment to patients guide their use.
It is important that we have nationally recognized thought leaders, like Dr. Baran, visit the Mizzou campus to share their big-picture ideas with our students, faculty and staff.
I am very pleased that what began as the Three Deans’ Lecture Series several years ago has now expanded to the Four Deans’ Lecture Series. The deans’ group now includes our new dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, Dean Srinand Sreevatsan. The other deans involved in this initiative are Dean Kristofer Hagglund of the College of Health Sciences and Dean Lori Popejoy from the Sinclair School of Nursing.
Each of the schools and colleges has devoted staff and resources to support this cross-campus initiative. The Four Deans’ Lecture Series demonstrates how all four academic units centered on health care can work together to deliver important messages to our campus and the community.
This series continues to show how acquiring new knowledge gives all of us power to achieve our missions of saving and improving lives — both human and animal.
Sincerely,
Rick Barohn, MD
Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Dean, School of Medicine
rbarohn@health.missouri.edu
