The University of the Virgin Islands has named Dr. Benjamin Sachs interim dean for a medical school it is developing. According to a statement released Monday from UVI, Sachs is engaged in the early stages of preparing documentation for the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the medical school accreditation organization for the United States and Canada, and developing the organizational structure of the medical school.
UVI announced plans to develop a medical school in the Virgin Islands in April, along with the receipt of a $30 million gift from New Generation Power and its chairman, Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria, to fund the school’s development stage. The UVI Medical School would be the only English-speaking medical school in the Caribbean accredited by the LCME if the plan passes muster.
“This in an exciting time for UVI and the Virgin Islands,” said UVI President David Hall. “A medical school in the Virgin Islands would provide expanded health professional opportunities for VI residents, enhance the quality of clinical care in the territory, increase the academic offerings of the university in the health professions, provide more health care research in the Virgin Islands and encourage economic development in the territory.”
Sachs said, “I’m excited to be involved in the formative stages of this medical school that holds such promise – for both the young people of the Virgin Islands and wider Caribbean who want to become physicians and for the potential of greatly improved health care delivery in the region.”
“I’ve had nothing but outstanding and really warm receptions from the physicians on St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John,” Sachs said, adding that he’s met with the Health commissioner and with the heads of the health centers and hospitals over the last six weeks to get their support, which he called “critical to the success of this project.”
According to the initial announcement, securing additional development and operational funding remains a primary goal for the medical school project and a critical component needed to support’s Sachs’ efforts to secure accreditation. An estimated $10 million from local and national donors is still needed to make the medical school a reality and allow UVI to enroll its first class in 2016-2017.
Sachs is currently a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School and practicing at Massachusetts General Hospital, according to the UVI news release. He has a background in clinical medicine, public health and health policy, finance and business administration, physician and hospital management, as well as patient safety and health care.
From 2007 to 2013 Sachs served as senior vice president of Tulane University in New Orleans, and dean of Tulane University School of Medicine. Sachs moved to Tulane in 2007 to help rebuild the school of medicine, which, along with the university, sustained some $900 million in damage during Hurricane Katrina, according to the release.
Prior to Tulane, Sachs served 29 years at Harvard University in several senior administrative positions at the Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He has been involved in a number of international health care initiatives, including fundraising for and the development of women’s and children’s health centers in the Philippines, Armenia and Ukraine, and extensive work in Central and South America, the Middle East and Asia.
A native of London, Sachs is the son of Holocaust survivors. He graduated from St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School, now Imperial College London, and earned a degree in public health at the University of Toronto. He worked as a visiting scientist at the Centers for Disease Control in 1980 and completed the Program for Management Development at Harvard Business School in 1987. He is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and in maternal fetal medicine.
