I am grateful for the opportunity to return to Madison to join this dynamic and caring community. We have a tremendous opportunity as we regroup from the COVID pandemic. If we go about this collectively, we will create a new normal that will catapult us into creative innovations.

The medical culture of the past has been successful in finding the causes of diseases and treating them. The medical culture of the future will create a new salutogenic science that uses inter-professional teams to explore, recognize, and reproduce healing patterns. This is the time to develop salutogenic science and open the doors for equitable access to everyone, particularly the most vulnerable.

Shifting a medical culture towards a better balance between disease and health will need the support of good people, and we have plenty. I am grateful to Jennifer Edgoose for partnering with me as the Executive Vice Chair of the department. I am also excited to work with Jerome Garrett, our new Department Administrator. We work for you and the people we are privileged to serve. There is no better time or place to reinvigorate, if not reinvent, our discipline.

This job is about doing good work through and with other people. If we can help you fulfill your calling to research, teach, and deliver healthy outcomes, we will all thrive.

I am so excited to get to work with you.

Let’s go!

Dave Rakel

Department Highlights

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