About Barbara Atkinson

Barbara F. Atkinson, MD, executive dean and vice chancellor for Clinical Affairs at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, will become executive vice chancellor of the University of Kansas Medical Center on Jan. 1, 2005. Dr. Atkinson will continue to serve as dean of the School of Medicine.

One of only 14 women nationally serving as dean of a medical school, she will be the first woman to lead the KU Medical Center and the only woman to simultaneously hold the positions of medical school dean and executive vice chancellor of a medical center. She will oversee 2,500 faculty and staff and a $311.3 million budget.

University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway announced the leadership change Aug. 17 at the annual medical center faculty and staff convocation.

“Barbara has done an outstanding job as dean of this high-profile school,” said Chancellor Hemenway. “In Dean Atkinson, we have a proven leader who can provide stable leadership. I have every confidence in her. Having her serve as both dean and executive vice chancellor will further streamline KU’s administrative structure.”

Dr. Atkinson was born in Minnesota and grew up in North Dakota, Illinois and Ohio. She received her bachelor’s degree from the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, and earned her medical degree from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. In 1996, she received the Jefferson Medical College Alumni Achievement Award.

Dr. Atkinson is a seasoned academic administrator. She began her career at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where she was assistant and then associate professor and director of the hospital’s cytopathology laboratory from 1978-87. She served as professor and chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Medical College of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1994 and at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University from 1994 to 1996. From 1996 to 1999, she was the Annenberg Dean of the MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine.

Her research has been in the identification and characterization of tumor antigens in cells and tissues and in development of techniques to recognize tumors and tumor types. She has edited seven books and is best known for those on cytopathology and gynecologic pathology, including the Atlas of Cytopathology (1992) and the Atlas of Difficult Diagnosis in Cytopathology (1998), dealing with the diagnosis of diseases based on the appearance of individual cells and groups of cells. In 2003, she completed work on a new edition of the Atlas of Cytopathology. Dean Atkinson is also one of two editors of a new open access web-based journal, Cytojournal. It can be found at http://www.cytojournal.com/home.

Dr. Atkinson was elected as the first woman trustee of the American Board of Pathology and is a past president of that organization. She also served as a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Committee on Increasing Women’s Leadership in Academic Medicine, vice chair of the Association of Pathology Chairs, chair of the Ethics Committee of the American Society of Cytopathology and council member of the American Society for Investigative Pathology. She is currently a member of the board of the National Board of Medical Examiners. In 1997, she was elected to membership in the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Atkinson joined the University of Kansas School of Medicine in 2000 to lead the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. In 2002, she was named executive dean and vice chancellor for Clinical Affairs and has led the school’s Kansas City and Wichita campuses which include 467 full-time faculty, 700 medical students and 650 resident physicians in training.

As EVC, she will continue her goal of seeking Comprehensive Cancer Center designation for the Kansas Masonic Cancer Research Institute and to grow the Medical Center’s biomedical research enterprise, which last year reached an all-time high of $76 million in total extramural research awards.

Dr. Atkinson has a passion for educating students and residents and is leading the effort for curriculum change for the medical school to ensure students are learning basic and clinical science from those who are on the leading edge of creating new medical knowledge. The school has made five senior recruitments and hired 157 new faculty, of which 96 are new positions, over the last two years.

Dr. Atkinson believes strongly in mentoring women and expanding the pool of women candidates for leadership positions in academic medicine. She was a founding member and continues to serve on the advisory board of ELAM – the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women – the nation’s only in-depth program focused on preparing women faculty at schools of medicine to move into positions of leadership.

The dean also is firmly committed to improving cultural diversity and minority enrollment at the Medical Center. In 2004, funding for diversity programs for the SoM totaled $11,801,146 in new awards. These included an NIH-funded Endowed Scholarship Program of $5.6 million over three years, a HRSA Center of Excellence grant for $3.7 million over three years, and the Health Careers Pathways Program funded at $2.4 million over three years – all to assist in the development of programs to recruit and retain underrepresented minority students and faculty.

EVC-designate Atkinson is married to William Atkinson, MD, professor in the department of Medicine. He is a pulmonary internist and is practicing in the division of General and Geriatric Medicine. They have a son and daughter-in-law, George Atkinson and Julie McCollum, of Independence, Missouri, and a daughter and son-in-law, Nancy and Charles Perkins, of Lenexa, Kansas. George is a CPA, Julie works for the School of Medicine, and Nancy and Charles are both chefs at area restaurants.

The family also includes a yellow lab, Oscar, and two birds – Buddy, an African Grey, who has a 200-word vocabulary and mimics voices, and Emma, a rose-breasted Cockatoo from Australia, who also talks but has a more limited vocabulary.

In her spare time, Dean Atkinson and her husband are avid “birders” who like to spot rare birds while on business trips and occasionally travel to find special species. Up to now, they have identified more than 500 species in the United States and Canada. Dr. Atkinson also enjoys walking, playing the flute and reading mystery stories.

The KU Medical Center is a campus of the University of Kansas. It offers educational programs through its Schools of Allied Health, Medicine, Nursing and Graduate Studies. The campus is comprised of academic units operating alongside The University of Kansas Hospital, which provides opportunities for clinical experience and residency positions. The School of Medicine-Wichita is a clinical campus in the state’s largest city.

KUMC enrollment in fall 2003 was 2,458 students, and 535 degrees were awarded during 2002-03. Employment exceeded 2,500 faculty and staff. Total revenue during FY2003 was $317.8 million (of which 32% was provided by the state, 31% was provided by gifts, grants and contracts, and 23% came from the physicians’ patient service revenue).

Dr. Barbara Atkinson was profiled in a story titled "Atkinson makes tough road look easy" in the August 2, 2004 issue of The Kansas City Business Journal. The complete story is available online at The Kansas City Business Journal web site.