When the opportunity came up to lead the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine, Dr. Anne Marie Lennon knew it would be a great fit.
Lennon is an internationally known physician-scientist, an expert in the early detection of cancer and the prevention of cancer. She’s the Moses and Helen Golden Paulson Professor of Gastroenterology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with joint appointments in surgery, medicine, radiology and oncology. She’s also since 2020 the leader of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Beginning in March 2024, she’s moving to Pittsburgh as chair of the Department of Medicine within the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and chair of medicine at UPMC. She’s the first woman to have the role, which is the largest department within the nationally ranked medical school. In an interview with the Business Times, Lennon said she believes Pitt’s Department of Medicine is one of the best in the country. And she’s got ambitious plans to take it even higher.
Her plans include investing in recruiting and retention, and being a national leader in high-impact, transformational research to speed innovations to the bedside.
“I think there’s a huge opportunity to break down silos and increase collaboration, and specifically integrate discovery and clinical practice and create a culture where basic science findings are rapidly translated to clinical medicine,” Lennon said.
Lennon, a gastroenterologist, said specialized physicians don’t always get a chance to work collaboratively.
“There’s often huge areas of growth opportunities for cross collaboration,” she said. She points to the issue of obesity, which is a natural form of interdisciplinary care taking in primary care physicians, endocrinologists, cardiologists, surgeons, respiratory specialists, and gastroenterologists, for example, because of the risks of diabetes, oncology heart disease, pulmonary hypertension, and liver failure. She also believes there are potentials for greater collaboration with UPMC departments and elsewhere at Pitt.
She also wants to increase relationships with commercial companies, looking for ways to transform clinical care and also make health care innovations at a much larger scale. Lennon is doing that in her current job at Johns Hopkins, with a blood test that can serve as an early detection for some types of cancer. They’re working with Geisinger, the Pennsylvania health care provider, to roll it out to more patients.
Lennon sees the opportunities at UPMC and Pitt, which are affiliated and have a large-scale health system, health insurance and academic medicine, all together. She said UPMC’s model of evidence-based, high-quality and cost-effective care will lead the way.
“I think that is the model that will be needed in the future” on a much wider scale, she said.
