By Joseph Altman Jr.
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The Arizona Health Sciences Center has named a new director of the Steele Memorial Children's Research Center and head of the UA College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics.
Dr. Fayez K. Ghishan, professor and vice chairman of Pediatrics/Research and director of the division of gastroenterology and Clinical Nutrition Research Center at Vanderbilt Medical School in Nashville, Tenn., will take both titles when he assumes his new role in June.
Ghishan received his medical degree from Ankara University in Ankara, Turkey. He also completed postgraduate work at the Royal College of Physicians in England, Pennsylvania State University and the University of Iowa.
He began work as an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University Medical School in 1979 and was promoted to full professor in pediatrics and molecular physiology in 1986. Ghishan is also the chairman of the general medicine study section at the National Institutes of Health.
In a statement from the AHSC, Dr. James Dalen, dean of the College of Medicine, said, "(Ghishan) is an outstanding pediatrician and teacher and is internationally recognized for his research in gastroenterology. Dr. Ghishan's leadership will further enhance the excellence of the Department of Pediatrics and will guide the Steele Memorial Children's Research Center to national prominence."
Ghishan's predecessor, Dr. Lynn Taussig, left the University of Arizona in October 1993 to become president and chief executive officer of the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine in Denver. Since then, Dr. Anthony F. Philipps, professor of pediatrics and assistant head for clinical affairs, has served as acting director.
Ghishan's position as the director of the research center, one of the College of Medicine's seven centers, will pay $240,000 annually.