Dr. Danny Jacobs will have spent several days this week meeting, speaking and handshaking his way into the favor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences community.
As one of two finalists for the academic medical center's chancellor position, it was his opportunity to make a first impression.
On Monday he spent the morning meeting with senior directors, speaking before a faculty-filled auditorium, and answering questions posed by the college's associate and assistant deans. On Tuesday, after a two-hour meeting with the University of Arkansas board of trustees, he took a quick flight to make his rounds at UAMS' northwest campus.
Amid his jam-packed schedule, Jacobs took note of the warmth his home state showed him. The Camden native, who left the state at age 13 to attend high school in Vermont in 1968, found "it's good to be back."
Jacobs, 62, who now serves as the executive vice president, provost and dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, felt his Camden roots as he visited the state.
"I met a distant relative from my mother's side of the family. There was one woman who is a nurse practitioner from Camden. I ran into a guy, a lawyer now, I think. His family and mine go back," he said. "I found someone who graduated from Harvard in 1974 who I hadn't seen in 30 years. So, lots of connections to Camden."
And as UAMS and media circulated his name as one of the top prospects to replace retiring chancellor Dr. Dan Rahn, Jacobs received a two-page letter from a Camden woman explaining her connection to his mother and father and expressing her excitement for a "native son" being considered for the position.
"A big part of the attraction is the opportunity to contribute in some way in my home state," he said.
"There is connectivity here that is warming."
Jacobs' competition for the chancellor position is Dr. A. Wesley Burks, who serves as executive dean of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and the Curnen distinguished professor in the university's Department of Pediatrics, a post named for the school's first chairman of pediatrics.
Burks, 63, has his own ties to the state. He earned his medical degree from UAMS, and completed an internship and residency program at Arkansas Children's Hospital before becoming chief resident in 1983.
Burks' son, Chris, is an attorney in Arkansas, and his daughter, Sarah, serves as Gov. Asa Hutchinson's education policy adviser.
Burks will undergo a similar meet-and-greet throughout the state near the end of this month before UA System President Donald Bobbitt pitches his recommendation to the board of trustees, who will then vote on Bobbitt's selection.
The chancellor's salary is a maximum of $375,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018, according to Act 512 of 2017. But Arkansas code annotated 6-63-309 states any exceptionally qualified individual can earn up to 25 percent more than the line-item appropriated amount. Other money can come from private funds.
Rahn earned $630,000 annually as chancellor plus a $13,000 stipend for housing and a car.
During Jacob's two-hour visit with the board of trustees, Chairman Ben Hyneman saw that Jacobs had a holistic vision of UAMS' role in Arkansas.
"I felt like I was hearing a lot of the same things from Dr. Jacobs as I heard from Dr. Rahn when he was going through the interview process back about seven and a half years ago," said Hyneman.
And that vision, as Hyneman described, is of an institution at which the primary role is delivering health care across the state, closely followed by the responsibility of training the state's next generation of health care providers.
"Dr. Rahn had a real affinity for maintaining that priority throughout his tenure here, and I heard Dr. Jacobs say that same thing. It's really crucial to have that as an objective," Hyneman said.
During an hourlong Q&A session on Monday between Jacobs and an auditorium of roughly 100 UAMS faculty, Jacobs was unequivocal about what is attractive to him about UAMS beyond his hometown heritage.
"Impact scale," he said. UAMS has a footprint in nearly every county in the state and is the state's primary health care research and education system. Compare that to Texas, Jacobs said, where the University of Texas Medical Branch is competing with several other health care institution across the state.
"We partner with our Texas partners, and we're doing even more so, but the impact scale is much greater here," he explained.
Jacobs was also quizzed about his experiences with legislators. He said he has the experience in legislative affairs to put him at ease before the Arkansas Legislature.
"In this job you need to be an academic, you need to be an able administrator, you need to have some political skill and interact with the governor and help him make decisions for charting the course for health care," Hyneman said.
Most importantly, Hyneman said, the candidate entering this role would need to do a great deal of listening and learning before taking any hard turns.
"When you first come, you need to come listening, you need to be reaching out to the faculty, know the other stakeholders, the members of the Legislature, learning all that you can," Hyneman said. "Not to come in brashly, but to come out with your hand out."
UAMS's search for a new chancellor comes at a time of uncertainty for the nation's health care system. A rapidly shifting health care landscape, stemming primarily from declining insurance reimbursements and from Washington proposals to change the health care system, has been linked to leadership shifts in hospitals across the country.
However, Jacobs stresses that no matter what happens with health insurance, an institution's focus should continue to be effective health care delivery.
"There is a need to be more efficient and more effective no matter what happens with health care insurance. We try to make a distinction between health care delivery, and health care insurance," he said. "But for me in the role I have at [the University of Texas Medical Branch], I think how can we be most effective in terms of improving the health care of the people we serve."
Bobbitt has not said when he expects to make his recommendation, Hyneman said.
"Dr. Rahn's going to be a hard act to follow. And I think that either one of these candidates has the qualifications to help continue to move us forward," said Dr. Jean McSweeney, professor and associate dean for research in the UAMS College of Nursing.
Metro on 07/19/2017