Roswell Park Cancer Institute President Appoints New Leadership Team
Buffalo, N.Y. (PRWEB) April 03, 2015 -- In an effort to better align the operational structure of the century-old cancer center, Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s 15th and first female president begins her tenure by reorganizing the talent around her.
“In many cases, these new appointments represent Roswell Park Cancer Institute parlaying our own existing strengths and talents,” says President and CEO Candace Johnson, PhD. “Restructuring some of these positions allows us to use our staff’s critical knowledge in the field to effect the policies and procedures that will enhance and improve our medical and scientific work.”
New appointments to and within the Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) staff were:
Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, FRCOG, FACOG, was named Deputy Director of the Institute. Dr. Odunsi provides operational oversight for the scientific, clinical-research and educational missions of RPCI, and monitors all research-related initiatives, steering development of programs and policies designed to transfer scientific discoveries to clinical settings. Dr. Odunsi came to RPCI in 2001 as attending surgeon in gynecologic oncology. He is currently the Chair of Gynecologic Oncology, Executive Director of the Center for Immunotherapy, Co-Leader of the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy program and the M. Steven Piver Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at RPCI.
Boris Kuvshinoff II, MD, MBA, was named Chief Medical Officer. A longtime clinical faculty leader and surgical oncologist at RPCI since 2002, Dr. Kuvshinoff, who continues as Director of the RPCI Liver and Pancreas Tumor Center, directs and manages the organization’s medical-affairs strategy, including operational areas such as clinical practice, risk management, physician recruitment and credentialing. He also manages the Institute’s quality strategy, an ongoing initiative to improve the overall quality of the organization’s facilities and patient-care services.
Victor Filadora, MD, MBA, was named Chief of Clinical Services. In this new role, Dr. Filadora, an anesthesiologist first appointed to RPCI’s medical staff in 2003, manages the Ambulatory Services, Perioperative Services, Sterile Processing, Pharmacy, Patient and Family Experience, Endoscopy Services and Therapeutic Services programs, and will also provide leadership and guidance to clinical department administrators throughout the Institute.
Thomas Schwaab, MD, PhD, was named Chief of Strategy, Business Development and Outreach. Dr. Schwaab, an Associate Professor of Oncology and Immunology, joined the Institute’s faculty in 2009. In this new role, Dr. Schwaab will supervise RPCI’s business development and overall strategic development. He will assure that business and clinical initiatives are delivered appropriately and support maximal quality, efficiency and effectiveness, and will work to continually widen the Institute’s scope of operations and growth potential at national and international levels.
Everett Weiss, MD, recently joined the Institute as Chief Medical Information Officer. A board-certified pediatrician with a certificate in biomedical informatics, Dr. Weiss comes to Roswell Park from Allscripts Healthcare Inc. in Chicago, Ill. Representing the interests of all clinical providers, he will promote and optimize RPCI’s use of electronic health-record systems and other clinical information technology to improve the quality, safety, reliability and efficiency of clinical workflows in the care of patients. He will also oversee viable clinical-informatics and data-governance functions and committees that support improved clinical outcomes and translational and epidemiological research.
Errol Douglas, SPHR, recently joined Roswell Park as Vice President of Human Resources. Douglas comes to RPCI from the University of Miami Health System, Miami, Fla., where he was the Executive Director of Human Resources for Hospitals. At Roswell Park, Douglas will direct all human-resources responsibilities, formulating personnel policies and procedures to support the Institute’s mission and ensuring consistency with laws, rules, regulations and contractual obligations.
Terrie Kothe was named Vice President of Managed Care. Kothe, who joined RPCI in 2012, negotiates and manages relationships between RPCI and third-party healthcare payers, including commercial and government plans. Additionally, she develops and executes strategic business plans to promote revenue growth, quality improvement and financial performance.
Pamela Germain, MBA, was named Vice President for Strategic Initiatives. Germain joined the administrative staff of the Institute in 1998, and in this new role manages the relationships between Roswell Park’s Center for Personalized Medicine and reimbursement-planning team with managed-care, commercial and government payers. She will head the effort to collaborate and negotiate with payers for services associated with OmniSeq Target, an advanced diagnostic test developed at RPCI that detects specific cancer-related gene mutations and guides targeted-therapy decisions.
Mary Reid, MSPH, PhD, was named Director of Cancer Screening and Survivorship. Dr. Reid came to RPCI in 2002 and is currently a Professor of Oncology in the Department of Medicine. In this new role, Dr. Reid will expand her work on Roswell Park’s pioneering Lung Cancer Screening Program and develop other cancer screening initiatives within the Institute, working with clinical departments to expand the colon and breast screening programs. Dr. Reid will also develop a comprehensive survivorship clinical and outreach program. In addition, Dr. Reid has been appointed as Associate Dean for Graduate Curriculum in the Division of Education.
David Goodrich, PhD, was named Interim Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Dr. Goodrich joined Roswell Park in 2001. He has previously served as Chair of the Molecular Pharmacology and Cancer Therapeutics graduate programs within the Roswell Park Graduate Division of the University at Buffalo. Dr. Goodrich will be responsible for supporting the scientific research of departmental faculty and providing leadership in developing research in high-priority fields.
Julia Faller, DO, MS, was named Medical Director of Perioperative Services. Dr. Faller joined Roswell Park in 2009 as a staff physician in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine. In this new role, she will provide day-to-day leadership and management of the operations of Roswell Park’s operating rooms, Endoscopy Suite, Post-Anesthesia Care Units and Surgery Center.
James Mohler, MD, was named Associate Director of Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) Shared Resources. Dr. Mohler is a national leader in clinical care and research in urologic oncology. He joined Roswell Park in 2003 and is also Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Prostate Cancer Guidelines Committee. In addition to his current role as Senior Vice President of Translational Research, Dr. Mohler takes on responsibility for overseeing the shared resources funded by CCSG. These resources, which include 14 laboratories, centers and/or facilities (such as the Bioinformatics Shared Resource, Clinical Data Network and Data Bank and BioRepository), serve the common needs of cancer researchers. Providing state-of-the-art science tools through these cores allows cancer research to be conducted more efficiently and with higher quality so that RPCI researchers can better compete for the limited federal funding and better serve the needs of the region.
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Editor’s note: High-resolution portraits of all those referenced here are available on request. Please send requests to annie.deck-miller(at)roswellpark(dot)org.
The mission of Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) is to understand, prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1898, RPCI is one of the first cancer centers in the country to be named a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center and remains the only facility with this designation in Upstate New York. The Institute is a member of the prestigious National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of the nation’s leading cancer centers; maintains affiliate sites; and is a partner in national and international collaborative programs. For more information, visit http://www.roswellpark.org, call 1-877-ASK-RPCI (1-877-275-7724) or email askrpci(at)roswellpark(dot)org. Follow Roswell Park on Facebook and Twitter.
Annie Deck-Miller, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, http://roswellpark.org, +1 (716) 845-8593, [email protected]
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