Meet Dr. Arthur Gomez, COM’ s new Senior Associate Dean( continued)
pediatrics, and internal medicine. It was hard to decide between the three of them what to go into. Ultimately, I decided to go into internal medicine because it just had the variety that I really liked,” said Dr. Gomez.
Dr. Gomez extended his total stay at the VA for 36 years, rising to the rank of Clinical Professor of Medicine at the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine. He initially became a regular faculty member at the VA-Sepulveda before becoming part of the residency training program there. Later, he became a VA-West LA academic faculty member and then subsequently through several years of partnership with Cedars Sinai, an associate program director.
What appeals to Dr. Gomez most about his new CDU gig?“ What interests me about the challenge is putting together all my experiences but now with meaning, if that makes sense. Because I know how to create curriculum based on all these experiences that I’ ve been talking to you about. I know how to train medical students and residents. But it’ s never been in the context that I originally went into becoming a physician for instance, training them to take care of the underserved.
“ What really interests me is the context in the community where the new medical school stands and the mission to address health disparities. Because if you look at my CV for many years, I’ ve been teaching students and residents about health disparities. The canary in the coal mine is health disparities. Now it’ s really something that is not going to allow us in medicine to be to up to our potential if we’ re leaving some people behind,” he added.
Dr. Gomez’ s body of work certainly prepared him well for the challenge of implementing a brand-new medical school, he noted.“ I’ ve worked with a lot of faculty over the years as head of the UCLA DGSOM- UCLA Doctoring Program. Sometimes I don’ t tell the faculty this, but it takes a special skill to herd cats. Everyone has their own ideas of how things should go. And I’ m pretty good at having people see the middle ground, if there’ s two different opinions among the two faculty members. I get them to see each other’ s perspective, and I do it gently without them even realizing that I’ m doing it.
“ I’ ve also created a lot of curricula over the years for student residents, so I’ ve been involved in accreditation processes; not leading them but having very significant role in all of those things that a dean of medical education needs to have experience in; not only to create curriculum, but also to evaluate it. To keep the program accredited, and to get faculty to work together on things.
“ And this last year we went through a curricular redesign at UCLA where we thought about these great ideas for curriculum that we actually this last year implemented. That’ s what the CDU college of medicine is going to have to do. I’ ve seen the wonderful mastermind work of Dr. Lindsey, and the curriculum that she’ s put together has all the beautiful elements. It’ s interprofessional. It’ s inclusive, it’ s interdisciplinary. It’ s patient-centered, it’ s all the things that you want in the curriculum, but it’ s on paper and you have to then put it in practice and then evaluate,” he added.
Special leadership skills?“ I lead by listening and by I think people have described me as a subtle leader, as someone who gets people to take ownership and create things collaboratively. And being led to do so almost not knowing that they’ re being led to do so. They have the buy in. They are the ones that get credit for what they’ re doing. I don’ t take credit for what other people have done,” he said.
And lastly, what is Dr. Gomez most passionate in this pioneering endeavor?“ Supporting students so that they feel empowered and then passion to take care of our community. If we can inspire students who come with that spark, but they may not feel that they can do it or have the capacity to do it, giving them that incentive, that push of support that they need to do what we all know they can do.”
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 7