Alan I. Leibowitz, M.D., named Chief Academic Officer for Banner Health in Arizona

PHOENIX (July 9, 2007) – Alan I. Leibowitz, M.D., who has served as director of Internal Medicine Programs for Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center’s Medical Education department since 1989, has been named Chief Academic Officer (CAO) for Banner Health in Arizona and Designated Institutional Officer for Banner Good Samaritan by Susan Edwards, President of Banner Health’s Arizona region.

As CAO, Dr. Leibowitz will direct all Banner academic medicine programs at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center and throughout Banner Health’s Arizona region to ensure that each residency program maintains full accreditation; that physicians graduating from Banner Good Samaritan and future Banner residencies are competent to independently practice their specialty and will pass their specialty boards; and that research activities are carried out in all programs sufficient to meet accreditation requirements. He will also continue to run the medicine program at Banner Good Samaritan.

“This is a major responsibility and I am honored to accept it,” Dr. Leibowitz said. “This is a very good time to take this on as most of the needs of medical education at Banner Good Sam have been addressed and structured very well by Dr. Jim McLoone (director of Psychiatry medical education programs) and requires oversight but little or no revision.”

A graduate of Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Dr. Leibowitz received his medical degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He performed his Internal Medicine residency at Brookdale Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., his fellowship in Gastroenterology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, N.H., and a fellowship in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Buffalo General Hospital. Dr. Leibowitz came to Banner Good Samaritan in 1989 and became Associate Head, Department of Medicine-Phoenix, for the University or Arizona College of Medicine and chairman of the Graduate Medical Education Committee for the Arizona Area Medical Education Consortium in 1997. In 1998, Dr. Leibowitz was named Chairman of Medicine for Banner Good Samaritan.

Dr. Leibowitz takes over the position formerly held by John Pierce, M.D., who has retired. Dr. McLoone served as interim CAO following Dr. Pierce’s retirement.

Ms. Edwards also named Steven Curry, M.D., director of Medical Toxicology, as the Associate Designated Institutional Officer. Dr. Curry will be involved in strategic development and new programs and will continue in his role as chair of Medical Toxicology.

Banner Good Samaritan has a 45-year history of training new physicians for Arizona. The first class from 1962 consisted of 18 “rotating” interns, with the first fellowship in Toxicology offered in 1990. This year, Banner Good Samaritan has accepted 248 residents and fellows, and the program will graduate 75 new doctors in June 2008.

As a primary teaching hospital for the University of Arizona College of Medicine, the Banner Good Samaritan Graduate Medical Education program selects residents from medical schools across the country and beyond. The program offers three- to five-year residencies in seven disciplines: Family Practice, Internal Medicine, Medicine/Pediatrics, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Psychiatry and Surgery. Residency graduates may seek additional training in Banner Good Samaritan’s 10 fellowship programs: Cardiology, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, Geriatrics, Hepatology, Interventional Cardiology, Maternal/Fetal Medicine, Orthopaedics, Pulmonary Medicine and Toxicology.

A 2002 survey found that 213 (or 60.7 percent) of the 351 graduates from Banner Good Samaritan’s residency programs between 1998-2002 chose to practice medicine in Arizona, with 201 of those physicians (or 57.2 percent) remaining in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Located in downtown Phoenix, Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center has been providing medical care to Arizona and the Southwest since 1911. Banner Good Samaritan is owned and operated by Phoenix-based Banner Health, a nonprofit organization. The hospital was named to U.S.News & World Report’s America’s Best Hospitals report in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Heart Care and Surgery, and Endocrinology. It has also been recognized as a Magnet facility by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the highest honor a hospital can earn for its nursing care.

Contact:
Banner Good Samaritan Public Relations
(602) 239-4411