Wayne State University Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Margaret Winters announced today that Professor Jack Sobel, M.D., chair of the WSU Department of Internal Medicine, is interim dean of the university's School of Medicine.
Dr. Sobel, of West Bloomfield, Mich., begins his role as interim dean Nov. 24.
"Dr. Sobel is a very respected member of the faculty who has devoted his life to the treatment of patients and to medical research to improve therapies," said Winters, who announced Dr. Sobel's appointment Thursday. "He is the ideal person to lead the school during this transition period."
Dr. Sobel replaces Dean Valerie M. Parisi, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., who in September announced her intention to leave the School of Medicine after five years as dean to accept a position at the University of South Florida. He will serve as interim dean while the university conducts a national search for a permanent dean.
"It is a privilege to be entrusted with leading our school of medicine, which plays such an integral role in the treatment and in medical research that improves the lives of so many, both in Michigan and around the world," said Dr. Sobel, 72. "I am dedicated to continuing and strengthening that reputation with our outstanding faculty, and to providing the finest education for our medical and doctoral research students."
Dr. Sobel is a longtime member of the School of Medicine faculty with extensive experience in both clinical practice and medical administration.
A 1965 graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in South Africa, he served as a research fellow in Infectious Diseases, Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases, with the National Institutes of Health, and as a fellow in Infectious Diseases at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. He joined the Wayne State University School of Medicine as a professor of internal medicine in 1985, and was named chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases.
One of the world's foremost authorities on bacterial vaginosis, Dr. Sobel is a widely published and strongly funded physician-researcher. He has been involved in basic science, translational and clinical research since the inception of his Infectious Diseases Research Fellowship in 1976 at the NIH Laboratory of Clinical Investigation. He has served as a consultant for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's special committee for recommending guidelines for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.
He also served as president of the Michigan Infectious Diseases Society from 1997 to 1999, and is a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the National State President's Committee and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Practice Guidelines Committee.
The chair of the Division of Research in the internal medicine department, Dr. Sobel also is a professor of WSU Immunology and Microbiology, and of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
He received the Golden Apple Award for best clinical teacher in 1979 and the Medical House Staff Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching in1984 at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. He was given the Distinguished Faculty Award from the WSU Department of Internal Medicine in 1986 and the School of Medicine's Teaching Award in 2004. In 2008 he received the Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Award, and in 2011 was elected to the WSU Academy of Scholars.
Dr. Sobel has been consistently named a Best Doctor in America since 1998, a Top Doctor since 1995 and a Super Doctor since 2011.
Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution of higher education offering 370 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 28,000 students.