Welcome to Inside WashU Medicine, a twice-monthly newsletter and content hub for and about the people who make up our community. As Dean and Executive Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs, I get to have a bird’s-eye view of what goes on here, from the everyday moments of exceptional, compassionate care to the landscape-changing discoveries, and everything in between.
I want all of you to have that same view.
Inside WashU Medicine aims to build a more connected and informed community by providing the opportunity to learn more about what goes on here every day as well as our accomplishments and the impact we’re making here in St. Louis and beyond. My hope is that you’ll find something here that informs, inspires or simply helps you see how your work connects to what’s happening across our organization.
There’s so much to say to you, our community, about who we are and where we’re headed. In each issue of the newsletter, the Leadership Connection will bring you a timely perspective from me or another member of our executive leadership team reflecting on what matters to our community.
This month that something is our reimagined mission, vision and values.
By now you’ve received an email from me about the process I’ve undertaken with the WashU Medicine leadership teams to renew our mission and vision statements, making them bolder and more inclusive of all the roles here.
Every role is a critical building block in something bigger than any single person or department.
But how do we get from mission to vision — from who we are today to the future we’re working toward?
That’s where our values come in.
Our values are the principles that guide us as we support our mission. That “we” is expansive — it includes every person and every role at WashU Medicine. Some of us care for patients. Some conduct research or teach. Others keep our facilities safe, support our patients and families, manage our finances, maintain our technology, coordinate our operations, or perform any number of tasks that keep us moving into the future, where our vision lies.
No matter who you are or what your job is, your work contributes to our collective success. Every role is a critical building block in something bigger than any single person or department. Our values are a framework for those roles, a blueprint for realizing our goal of changing the landscape of medicine and medical science forever.
We only get to where we’re going if everyone does their part, and that begins with the survey I sent to our entire community this morning.
Please take a moment to fill out the survey and weigh in on what you believe our top five values should be. Narrowing those choices to five is no easy task — there are so many defining qualities I’ve already seen here at WashU Medicine — but it is vital that we think critically about which values are essential as we fulfill our mission and work toward our vision.
I look forward to your feedback and to continuing this work together.
Sincerely,
Bruce D. Levy, MD
Executive Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs
Joseph Erlanger Distinguished Professor
George and Carol Bauer Dean, WashU Medicine