Acting Executive Vice Chancellor Steven Stites, M.D.
Steven Stites, M.D., was appointed acting Executive Vice Chancellor and acting Executive Dean of the University of Kansas School of Medicine in April 2012.
A practicing physician and nationally recognized pulmonologist, Dr. Stites is Peter T. Bohan Professor and Chair of the department of Internal Medicine and director of the Cystic Fibrosis Center at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Dr. Stites became chair of Internal Medicine — the medical center's largest department — in 2007. Under his leadership, the department has grown from 85 faculty members to 177, while rising in NIH rankings from 95th to 74th among 112 departments nationwide. Residency training in the department has grown from an average of 10 residents a year to more than 20. The department is also training more physician scientists, and has expanded from five Ph.D. faculty to its current 27.
Five Internal Medicine divisions — pulmonary medicine, nephrology, cardiology, oncology and gastroenterology — earned top rankings in U.S. News and World Report's 2011-12 Best Hospitals rankings. The department's medical intensive care unit is one of the country's best, with a Beacon Award to its name.
The KU Medical Center's Cystic Fibrosis Center, which Dr. Stites founded in 1994, is one of the larger adult programs in the U.S., serving patients from Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and Oklahoma. Dr. Stites' areas of research include investigating different methods of airway clearance for adult CF patients and how these affect the distribution of inhaled medicines. He has written at length on the ways and means of developing mission-based funding for academic departments. The Educational Value Unit (EVU) system — specifically aligning salary support for faculty with each individual's educational responsibilities — which he published in 2005, has been adopted by several other institutions.
Strategic plan
KU Medical Center has seen unprecedented growth in the last decade, expanding our education, research and clinical initiatives.
In 2011, the medical center embarked on a strategic planning effort to deliver a unified action plan charting our ambitious collective future. Learn more...