BATON ROUGE La.
For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, LSU’s medical school has a separate chancellor and dean of medicine.
The appointment of Dr. Steve Nelson as dean of medicine at LSU Health Sciences Center of New Orleans shows that medical education there is moving forward and becoming more stable, said Dr. Larry Hollier.
Hollier, who had been both chancellor and dean of medicine since the hurricane in 2005, said few people would have wanted the dean’s job two years ago, but this year’s national search produced several top candidates.
Nelson, who has “done it all” in his 23 years at LSU, was the overwhelming choice as the school’s head academic officer and its leader in grants and clinical health care, Hollier said.
“I’m obviously very excited,” Nelson said. “This is the opportunity to rebuild the health science center and train the next generation” of doctors.
Nelson, a professor of medicine, currently leads the LSU Alcohol and Drug Abuse Center of Excellence. He is also vice chairman of research in the department of medicine, chief of pulmonary medicine and program director of the Tulane/LSUHSC General Clinical Research Center at University Hospital.
