Endowed faculty positions such as Professorships and Chairs provide unique opportunities, time and resources to help our faculty make advances in patient care, education, and research. They also confer prestige to the holder, to our department, and to UW Medicine and they provide us with an important tool in recruiting and retaining terrific faculty.

Over the past two months, four of our faculty became holders of newly endowed positions, an incredible testament to the quality of our faculty and their work. Heidi Combs, MD, was appointed to the Stern Endowed Chair for Medical Education, a newly created position designed to help recruit and retain faculty to mentor and train clinical teachers and students in the UW School of Medicine; Christine Curry, MD, was appointed to the Lynn M. Garvey Endowed Professorship in First Episode Psychosis Care (more about this appointment in the May newsletter); Larry Wissow, MD, was appointed to the Raisbeck Endowed Chair in Pediatric Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine; and Raphe Bernier, PhD, was appointed to the William J. and Lydia N. Gumerman Endowed Chair in Child Psychiatry.