5 questions with… Case Medal for Excellence in Health Science Innovation winner Jim Young

It happens every morning, but for Jim Young, this time was magic.

He was sitting in a 6:30 a.m. meeting at the Health Education
Campus, and as the conversation continued the sun began peeking through its
west-facing windows.

While the atrium gradually grew brighter, “hundreds and hundreds
of students [began] pouring in… It was a remarkable thing, watching the chatter
and the buzz and the excitement.”

The Cleveland Clinic’s Chief Academic Officer had been there at
the very beginning, back when talks between top leaders of the hospital and Case
Western Reserve centered on a 165,000-square-foot joint medical education
building.

Now, six years later, he was sitting in the 477,000-square-foot Samson Pavilion, watching students from the university’s schools of nursing, dental medicine, and medicine—including the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine—live the leaders’ vision of true interprofessional education, the kind that prepares graduates to lead in team-based health care.

Even better, just a couple of weeks earlier, CWRU’s School of
Medicine had recognized Young’s own longstanding efforts to advance the
partnership—as well as his extraordinary achievements as a clinician and
researcher—with the Case Medal for Excellence in Health Science Innovation.
Announced at a school event for alumni and donors during homecoming, the honor
came as a surprise.

“I
had absolutely no idea that my name was the name that was going to be called,”
Young recalled. “I was stunned. The group that I joined are some real
luminaries and I just didn’t think of myself as being in that crowd.”

Yet
even before joining the Cleveland Clinic in 1995, Young already had earned
renown for his clinical research regarding heart failure, repair and
transplantation. During his time at the Baylor College of Medicine, for
example, he worked closely with Michael DeBakey, known throughout the world for
his innovations in cardiac surgery; an internist, Young played key roles in
those efforts, as well as the care patients received after the procedures. He
has published hundreds of manuscripts and textbooks, and led or co-led some of
the nation’s most pioneering multi-center clinical trials related to the
treatment of cardiovascular issues.

“He is a
national leader in clinical research into heart failure, and in spite of his
demanding administrative schedule, still covers patients with heart failure,
leads national studies, and serves on prestigious panels,” medical school Dean
Pamela B. Davis said during the event. “This alone would justify the award of
the medal tonight—but there is more!”

After chairing Cleveland Clinic’s department of medicine and then
leading the hospital’s endocrinology institute to among the top five in the
nation, Young became Lerner College’s dean—where he raised that program’s
stature as well, and then played a pivotal part in what became the Health
Education Campus. Now as Cleveland Clinic’s chief academic officer, Young
oversees its education and research efforts, including those involving studies
of health care using the hospital’s unique model of delivery.

“From
the very beginning, the Cleveland Clinic has been focused on the singular
mission of patient care on a foundation of research and education,” Young said.
“So for me, the most rewarding part of the job is to be able to move that
forward, move that into new and different areas.”

Find
out more about Young in this week’s five questions.

1. What’s something you don’t know how to do but would like
to learn?

Play the piano. I love music and I played in a variety of
different bands. I played the tuba—not a very delicate instrument—and I’ve
always been intrigued by the piano and by the organ. I can pound on the keys
but I can’t really play the piano and I think it would be fun to try to learn.

2. Who’s the best teacher you’ve ever had?

Back in the late 1960s, when I was in high school, my English
teacher was probably the most intriguing teacher that I’ve ever had, and
because of that, she was perhaps the best teacher I’ve ever had. This was back
in the 1960s, it was in the San Francisco-Bay Area. She was this crazy, wild
hippie and was quite an intellect and quite the muse, if you will, to the
students.

3. Where do you most like to travel?

From the medical center to home. We work long hours, everyone
here, and that’s my best destination. But if I were going to pack a bag and go
somewhere more distant, I think my favorite place to go is San Francisco, so
it’s going back home in a way, but I’ve often said San Francisco is the best
place to travel to and the worst place to live.

4. If you could go back in time and tell a younger version of
yourself something, what would you say?

I’d say, you never know what’s going to happen, so keep your
eyes open and just go with the flow.

5. What’s your favorite thing about Case Western Reserve?

I like Case Western Reserve because of its heritage and the openness that they have to new thinking, new ideas and new concepts. They’ve been a wonderful place to partner and I’ve been very pleased with many of the things that we have built together. Obviously the Health Education Campus is the biggest effort, but we’ve done a lot more with Case [Western Reserve] over the years and I think that’s been very, very rewarding and enjoyable. And I think Case [Western Reserve] is open to the concept of being stronger together with the main players in the city, and in health care, there’s a lot of great places in the city and Case [Western Reserve] has partnered with pretty much every one of them. I see that as one of the best things about CWRU.