A Pioneer in Leadership

Johnson County’s Barbara Atkinson provides vision for KU Medical Center

By Carolyn Hall
The Best Times
July 2005

Her interest in science brought her to medicine. And at the University of Kansas Medical Center, with her dynamic nature Barbara Atkinson is creating a new model of leadership for women.

Atkinson is the Medical Center’s first woman dean; only 13 medical schools nationwide have a woman in that position. That alone would be impressive, but as of Jan. 1, she also has been the Medical Center’s executive vice chancellor. She is the first woman in the nation to hold both positions simultaneously.

PHOTO: Barbara Atkinson (far right), executive vice chancellor of the University of Kansas Medical Center and dean of the KU School of Medicine, reviews slides with pathology residents in the surgical pathology lab at KU Hospital. From left: Soheila Hamidpour, MD; Lisa McLaughlin, MD, JD; Barbara Shideler, MD; and Asraa Namiq, MD. Photo by Shari Hartbauer.

After graduating from the College of Wooster, in Wooster, Ohio, Atkinson married and started a family. She planned on going into research, using her majors in biology and life science—but her husband and advisers convinced her that enrolling in medical school would provide more career options. That advice would change medical history.

“I started medical school when my kids started kindergarten,” Atkinson says. “There was little day care available back then for women who worked or went to school.”

Enrollments of women in medical schools reached 49.5 percent in 2004, but only 14 percent of senior faculty and 10 percent of deans are women, according to an article in the Association of American Medical Colleges Reporter.

Where does a pioneer in women’s leadership look for lessons in success?

“I learned by watching others,” Atkinson says.

She began by doing what she liked and what she did well, and continued to take on additional leadership roles.

“At each step, I looked at what I wanted to accomplish and saw that I needed position to do it,” she says. She also studied others in leadership roles and developed her own ideas as to what she wanted to do. “That taught me to succeed.”

Watching the success of her husband, Dr. William Atkinson, and her parents, inspired her. Her father is professor emeritus on the faculty of the Ohio State University College of Medicine.

“He is still active and successful and encourages me to succeed,” she says.

She finds great advantage in being married to a doctor.

“He’s sympathetic, because he knows what I’m going through; he’s the whole reason I could keep on track. And he gives me a male perspective on things,” Atkinson says of her husband, who is a professor in the Department of Medicine at the Medical Center.

Atkinson built her own career path to top administrative positions, and now she guides those who follow. She is a founding board member of Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine. Established in 1995, ELAM is a personal and professional development program working to increase the number of women qualified to take leadership positions in academic medicine and dentistry. The program’s success showed in its first decade, with two-thirds of 350 graduates receiving promotions.

With her commitment to mentoring, it’s no surprise that Atkinson’s EVC Leadership Lecture Series at the Medical Center this past semester was titled “Building a Leadership Culture—All Day, Every Day.”

Just what does the dean of a medical school do?

“Determine the vision, set the goals and priorities, pick the people to get it all done, delegate, hold people accountable, then stop at the milestones along the way and articulate the progress,” says the dean.

She wants her medical students to learn the basics, develop their skills, become self-motivated, and know they will have to be lifetime learners. She notes, for example, that many of the drugs she learned about in medical school are no longer in use.

Atkinson likes to envision her goals and finds excitement in achieving them.

“I want to be a good leader in academics, look to the future, see what’s good for the whole, and decide what needs to be accomplished to make a difference,” she says.

As executive vice chancellor, her oversight includes all four schools within the Medical Center—medicine, nursing, allied health, and graduate studies—with a total enrollment of more than 2,500 students. Her responsibilities include a $317.8 million budget and 2,500 staff and faculty.

Her goals as executive vice chancellor are much the same as her goals as dean, but on a more external basis. Under her direction, the Medical Center assesses its current and future needs and also works with the region and the state of Kansas to identify and address local and state needs.

Besides being a significant employer for the metropolitan area, the Medical Center assists in attracting business.

“The KU Medical Center is part of the whole region’s economic development, training the workforce of tomorrow—not just training the doctors, researchers, and nurses, but developing specific programs tailor-made for the needs of Kansas and the Kansas City area,” she says.

Biotech start-up companies planning to locate in the area have expressed a need for trained research assistants. The Medical Center started a program in its Allied Health Department to train such workers, and is educating future professors, as well. The School of Nursing has the only doctoral program for nurses in the state that enables graduates to become faculty at other schools of nursing.

Celebrating the successes of others comes with Atkinson’s positions. Following this interview, she was going to spend an entire Saturday attending graduation ceremonies for all four of the medical center’s schools.

“Graduation is my favorite time,” Atkinson says. “It lets me know why I’m here.”

A brief look into Atkinson’s professional history is an energizing experience. She has edited seven books related to pathology and is one of two editors of a new open-access Web-based journal, Cytojournal. Atkinson was the first woman trustee elected to the American Board of Pathology and is a past president of the board. She is a member of the National Board of Medical Examiners. And before coming to Kansas, she was the Annenberg dean of the MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Penn.

Atkinson began her career at the KU Medical Center in 2000 as head of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Science.

“A good friend recruited me,” she says. “I loved the people and I loved the place.”

She went on to become dean of the medical school in 2002.

When asked what achievement she is most proud of, she does not hesitate. It’s her election to the membership of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a select group with just over 1,400 members—only 15 to 20 pathologists among them.

Atkinson builds balance into her life. She and her husband are avid birders who never miss a chance to enjoy their outdoor passion. That’s why she makes it a point to travel with binoculars. On a recent trip to Garden City, Kan., to visit an online learning site that recently graduated its first two nurse practitioners, Atkinson added a side trip to the local zoo and put those binoculars to good use, watching a barn owl with a nest of babies.

Whenever she can, Atkinson adds in her three favorite stress relievers: family, friends, and the outdoors. Living in DeSoto, Kan., is part of the blend. When she and her husband relocated to Johnson County, they wanted small-town country living.

“We live in a wooded area that reminds me of where I lived in Philadelphia,” she says.

The move to Johnson County became a family affair, the couple’s son and his family moving to the area just nine months after their parents. Their daughter and her family recently made their home here, as well.

It’s hard to keep Atkinson on the topic when discussing her accomplishments; she would rather bring up other people’s contributions. Ask about her age and you will find she doesn’t track her birthdays; she’s focused on the future and expanding horizons for the Medical Center.

The dean sees a huge opportunity for the center to be known for providing the absolute best care through its doctors, its research, its outpatient care, and its center for advanced treatment.

“I want to help the Medical Center move forward by capitalizing on its past successes,” she says.

Those plans include equipping and celebrating the opening of the new Biomedical Research Center, which is under construction. This five-story, $57.7 million project was financed with both state and private funds and features 80 laboratories. She wants the Medical Center to secure more research monies, expand research partnerships like that with the Stowers Institute, and achieve National Cancer Institute designation for its cancer center, the Kansas Masonic Cancer Research Institute.*

There will be impressive buildings built under her tenure, but it’s no surprise when Atkinson says, “I don’t want to be remembered for buildings. I want to be remembered for building programs.”

* Earlier this year, the National Cancer Institute awarded the cancer center a five-year, $16 million contract to operate one of its Cancer Information Service sites. KU Medical Center had been a Cancer Information Site since 1988, but this expands its reach from 22 million people in four states to 80 million people in 17 states. You can call the information site toll-free from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at (800) 422-6237. All calls are confidential.

Carolyn Hall is a freelance writer who lives in Shawnee.
This story is reprinted by permission of The Best Times.