Wayne State University Professor of Surgery Charles Shanley, M.D., F.A.C.S., was appointed vice dean for Clinical Affairs for the WSU School of Medicine, effective Feb. 1. Shanley also will become president and chief executive officer of the Wayne State University Physician Group on March 1.
“Dr. Shanley is the opportune physician leader to guide the clinical faculty and WSUPG into its next phase,” said Jack D. Sobel, M.D., dean of the WSU School of Medicine and chair of the physician practice group. “That next phase takes clinical care delivery and innovation in quality, access and patient safety to new levels, and more effectively aligns our clinical enterprise with our educational, research and community service missions.”
A resident of Grosse Pointe Farms, Shanley has served in a variety of clinical and academic management roles throughout the course of his leadership career, including residency program director for both general surgery and vascular surgery, division chief for vascular surgery and surgical department chair. He also served in a number of health system operational and management roles, as senior vice president for Surgical Services and co-medical director for William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak from 2006 to 2009, where he was the lead physician executive for one of the largest surgical enterprises by volume in the nation. Surgical services operations at Beaumont included more than 900 full-time staff as well as 460 attending and associate surgeons with an annual operating budget of $150 million.
“Academic medicine faces daunting clinical, operational and financial challenges. Perhaps never before has engaged physician leadership been more important if we are to collaboratively solve the difficult problems we face,” said Shanley, a 1987 graduate of the WSU School of Medicine. “Despite our obvious challenges, I am supremely confident that this will prove to be one of the most extraordinary periods in modern history for Wayne State University and Detroit, it is an honor and a privilege to serve the university and city that have given so much to me personally and professionally.”
In 2009, Shanley was appointed senior vice president for Professional (Physician) Services and associate chief medical officer for Beaumont Health, and was primarily accountable for the restructuring of the physician compensation and incentive plan. In 2010, he co-founded Medical Engineering Partners LLC, an advanced bioengineering and medical device prototyping firm with fellow WSU faculty member Gregory Auner, Ph.D. They successfully completed Series A financing in 2017 for Detroit-based Seraph Biosciences Inc. (founded in 2014), to commercialize a novel Raman-spectroscopic diagnostic platform that is based in part upon intellectual property licensed from WSU for real-time pathogen and agent detection at the point of care.
A distinguished fellow of the Society for Vascular Surgery, Shanley’s research has been funded by the Department of Defense Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the National Institutes of Health. He serves on the Health Care Patient Safety and Quality Study Section of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and was appointed to the Circulatory Devices Advisory Panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Shanley succeeds Lisa Keane, who is transitioning to a consulting role in Health Affairs at WSU and WSUPG, from which she will continue to work on high-level projects.
“We owe Lisa our deepest gratitude for her effectiveness in turning around and stabilizing WSUPG during the last two years,” Sobel said. “The skills and professionalism she brought to WSUPG provided us with a solid foundation. Her dedication and admirable service in correcting WSUPG’s course prepared us for this next level of advancement and in helping the School of Medicine realize its vision of transforming the promise of equal health care into a reality for all.”