Faculty members at the Medical School travel around the world speaking about their research and ways to improve the medical community. This knowledge now will be available within the U-M community with the creation of the Dean’s Lecture Series.

“We have almost 90 endowed professorships, which are invited all around the world to tell about their best work,” says Dr. David Bloom, associate dean of the Medical School. “We thought, let’s have them tell us what they are working on.”

The lectures are aimed toward a general University audience, as well as the larger Ann Arbor community, and will be presented accordingly.

“The lectures will not contain a lot of raw data and technical details, but will hopefully provide a crowd-pleasing overview,” Bloom says.

The lecture series will serve as a unifying cultural event for the 1,700 full-time faculty, 600 students, nearly 100 residents, and nurses and staff of the Medical School, Bloom says.

“Dean [Allen] Lichter has been engaged in the development of cultural unity in the Medical School, a challenge given our size and diversity of fields, workplaces and careers,” Bloom says.

The series also will look to link the Medical School to other schools on campus.

“We are a very collaborative school, not only within the Medical School, but within the whole University. We hope this series will augment future collaboration,” Bloom says.

Dr. Timothy R. B. Johnson, Bates Professor of Diseases of Women and Children, will kick off the lecture series. The talk will look at the legacy and future of women’s health at U-M, Bloom says.

“Tim Johnson is the perfect choice for the inaugural lecture,” Bloom says. “He is the chair of one of the world’s preeminent departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and he is a compelling speaker.”

A reception will follow each lecture.