During this holiday season, I am especially grateful for your remarkable work and the impact all of you have had at our hospitals, clinics, classrooms, research labs, and shared services during the past year.
As I said on Friday during my “fireside chat” with Trish Kritek, our vice dean for faculty affairs, you are our greatest resource (see The Huddle for a recording of our conversation). You make it possible to advance our mission to improve the health of the public with your talents and spirit of innovation. You are improving health for all people with your commitment to patients, creative discovery, training the next generation of healthcare professionals and scientists, and advancing our equity, diversity and inclusion work.
I invite you to visit our UW Medicine Instagram page to view some of our many accomplishments in 2023. Along with wonderful photos, the broad scope and impact of your work are seen in these and other posts:
- Justin Knutsen got his family to safety when wildfire forced evacuation in his area; he then went back to help others. He’s now recovering from his injuries at Harborview.
- Thank you to all our nurses! Your hard work, resilience and dedication to serving our community is greatly appreciated.
- Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at where every @airliftnw flight starts: the communications center.
- This liver transplant celebration takes the cake for creativity.
- Wonderful moment in the history of biology: Information about our exciting collaboration with the Allen Institute and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
- WWAMI Medical School Graduation: More than 260 UW School of Medicine students received doctoral hoods and can now be officially called “Doctor”!
- In honor of #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth, we raised the flag to acknowledge that we live on the ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish and other Indigenous peoples.
At this time of holiday celebrations, I hope you can find space for your personal well-being, whether through connections with family and friends or other activities that bring you joy. As I said during the fireside chat, I relish my opportunities to reinvigorate myself with long walks in the company of my wife and our two golden retrievers. I also want to acknowledge that the holidays can be a difficult time for some members of our community. If you have experienced loss and hardship, your UW Medicine community has resources and is here to support you.
Thank you for being part of our special community and caring for each other. My best wishes for a happy new year!
Sincerely,
Timothy H. Dellit, MD
Chief Executive Officer, UW Medicine
Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and
Paul G. Ramsey Endowed Dean of the School of Medicine,
University of Washington
