Nathe: Dr. Robert Dipaola Joined the University of Kentucky Family on March 1St As Dean

UKATH Sept. 10, 2016:

Thanks Brian,

Nathe: Dr. Robert DiPaola joined the University of Kentucky family on March 1st as Dean of the UK College of Medicine.

Dean DiPaola: People are incredibly nice, I think the collaborative nature, what has struck me is how receptive and how engaged the faculty are especially with initiatives that bridge collaboration.

Nathe: Nationally recognized for excellence in translational research, clinical operations and education. DiPaola spent most of his career at Rutgers University in New Jersey, directing its national cancer institute designated comprehensive cancer center and serving in other leadership roles, he is thrilled to be part of UK Healthcare.

Dean DiPaola: I've been impressed with really with the strength and the leadership here, everybody really puts the mission first to serve the Commonwealth and the needs that we have and the strength of the faculty that really want to do the right thing there are just so many opportunities and I'd have to say I'm pretty excited about it I think it's going to be both challenging but very rewarding as we enhance our research, our education and we leverage all of what we have for more impact in the health system and the care we have for Kentucky.

Nathe: In football and other team sports MVP stands for Most Valuable Player, Dean DiPaola has his own definition of MVP.

Dean DiPaola: What we launched a few months ago here was an effort to bring together multiple disciplines especially researched strong areas of science with clinical areas in the form of clinical trials, multidisciplinary, bringing disciplines together, value meaning the research having value to the patients and health and wellness of the community and a program so an MVP program, only gave them a two-week period to put in letters of intent and we had 31 teams formed.

Nathe: DiPaola embraces the idea of the UK College of Medicine playing an even greater role in educating Kentucky's future physicians.

Dean DiPaola: We had about 3500 applicants and this year's class was 136 students, we really need to bring that up and then even more so we would predict that if we have college expansion sites in more western Kentucky and more eastern Kentucky there's going to be a likely-hood that many of those students will eventually come back to serve Kentucky.

Nathe: Dean Robert DiPaola, of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. To keep up with what's going on at the University of Kentucky log onto uky.edu there you can find our UKNow news website as well as how to follow us on social media via Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. Seeing Blue, I'm Carl Nathe with UK at the Half.