06-05-2022 Hall of Fame - Flipbook - Page 28
28 Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, June 5, 2022
BALTIMORE SUN’S 2022
BUSINESS AND CIVIC HALL OF FAME HONOREE
PAUL ROTHMAN
I
t was a high school biology teacher named Mark Yohalem who
in the mid-1970s inspired Paul Rothman — then a senior excited
about biology — to pursue a career in science that led, three
decades later, to the top job at Johns Hopkins Medicine, one of
the world’s most prestigious medical systems. Mr. Yohalem was
chairman of the Science Department at Bayside High School in
Queens, New York. The virologist David Baltimore, from nearby
Long Island, had just won the Nobel Prize for his research on
viruses and DNA, and Mr. Yohalem encouraged his students to
consider biomedical research. So, from Bayside, young Paul went
to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Dr. Baltimore was a professor of biology. It was an exciting time — “just the beginning of the biomedical
revolution of the last 50 years,” the now Dr. Rothman says.
At Yale, where he studied for his medical degree, Dr. Rothman encountered
Charles Janeway, a leading immunologist renowned for his work on innate
immunity. “He was a genius,” Dr. Rothman says, reflecting on the groundbreaking scientists who inspired him on a path that led, eventually, to the positions of
dean of the medical faculty and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
After Yale, Dr. Rothman trained at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in internal medicine and rheumatology, with his prime
research on immune system molecules. That’s where Dr. Rothman discovered
that he had management skills as well as the chops for deep research.
“I trained as a clinician, and I
loved science,” Dr. Rothman says,
“I went on the faculty, and I was
able to get a lot of grants, and I built
a large lab group. When you have
20 people working for you and
you’re writing a lot of grants, you
develop skills in managing groups
and managing finances. Many
scientists do not like the business
aspect of science, but I did not mind
it. I thought I could do good because
I’m grounded in science.”
At Columbia, he took over a division of medical specialties that
went beyond his own research and
expertise, but he was able to build
the division by recruiting good clinicians, including Neil Schluger.
“Paul is a brilliant scientist, but he
is also a remarkably talented administrator and a gifted leader,” says Dr.
Schluger, who succeeded Dr. Rothman as chief of Columbia’s Division
of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical
Care Medicine and is now chair
of medicine at New York Medical
College. “He always has had the
ability to see the big picture, and
he is remarkably perceptive about
what is really important in medicine
and science — in the laboratory, the
classroom and on the wards of the
hospital.”
Dr. Rothman’s success at Columbia led to a job offer from the
University of Iowa. He and his
family moved to the Midwest in
2004. Dr. Rothman took professorships in internal medicine and physiology. His wife, Frances Meyer, a
gastroenterologist, left a practice in
Manhattan to make the move; she
became an associate professor in
clinical medicine. “She went from
60th Street and Madison [Avenue]
to the cornfields of Iowa,” Dr. Rothman says, expressing gratitude that
his wife agreed to the move to Iowa
City with him and their three children.
“We loved it there,” he says.
Dr. Rothman became head of
internal medicine and, in 2008,
dean of Iowa’s Carver College of
Medicine.
In 2012, he moved to Baltimore
for the big job at Hopkins.
“How to listen,” he says, when
asked what he learned during his
Iowa years. “I went out there thinking I was going to transfer everything I did from New York and
Columbia, but things were different
there. The truth is, everything they
did there had a rationale behind it,
and it was right for that culture. You
learn that culture is really important in thinking strategically. You’re
not going to change culture quickly.
A lot of places are doing things
because it fits into their culture. I
learned to think about how important culture was.”
And in Iowa, he says, part of the
culture was being kind — to patients
and to each other. And those lessons
stayed with him, he says, when, in
2012, he joined Hopkins.
“One of the things I appreciate
most about Paul is that he always
values people for who they are as
human beings,” says Dr. Schluger.
“That’s a far too uncommon trait in
the rarefied world of elite academic
institutions, where people are often
valued only for the sheer weight of
their curriculum vitae — their grant
funding and publications.”
At Hopkins, Dr. Rothman became
CEO of a $10 billion medical system
with more than 40,000 full-time
faculty and staff. Eight years into
the job came his biggest challenge:
the coronavirus pandemic.
“We always kept the safety of our
patients and staff as our No. 1 goal,”
he says. “We never worried about
how it was going to financially
impact us. We kept the well-being of our staff and our patients
as the North Star throughout the
pandemic, and I think we were
pretty successful. We spent a lot of
money to get the [personal protection equipment] we needed early
on, and we leaned on [the] conservative side when it came to restrictions to make sure people were
safe.”
Dr. Rothman will retire as CEO
in July after 10 years — and many
70-hour work weeks. After a year
in Colorado to hike, ski and catch
up on sleep, he plans to return to
Hopkins (in some yet-determined
capacity) and the path he chose
back at Bayside High.
“One of the things I
appreciate most about
Paul is that he always
values people for who
they are as human
beings. That’s a far too
uncommon trait in the
rarefied world of elite
academic institutions,
where people are often
valued only for the
sheer weight of their
curriculum vitae —
their grant funding and
publications.”
— Neil Schluger, chair of medicine
at New York Medical College
AT A GLANCE
Age: 64
Hometown: New York City
Current residence: Baltimore
County
Education: Massachusetts
Institute of Technology;
Yale School of Medicine
Career highlights: Professorships in
medicine, microbiology and internal
medicine, Columbia University;
dean, Carver College of Medicine,
University of Iowa; CEO of Johns
Hopkins Medicine and Dean of
the medical faculty; professor of
medicine and molecular biology and
genetics, Johns Hopkins University.
Civic and charitable activities:
Board member, Maryland Science
Center.
Family: Married to Frances Meyer;
three children.