Interim leaders have been appointed to head the Baylor College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics and Texas Children’s Hospital pediatric care.
Gordon Schutze, MD, a Baylor professor in Pediatrics, was named the medical college’s interim chair of the pediatrics department. Jim Versalovic, MD, PhD, pathologist-in-chief at Texas Children’s, has been appointed the hospital’s interim physician-in-chief.
Schutze has served as executive vice chair of the Department of Pediatrics and as executive vice president for the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s, or BIPAI.
His special interests in medicine include bacterial and tick-associated diseases, pediatric global health and the teaching of pediatrics. He is an active member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Board of Pediatrics, where he currently serves as chair of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Sub-Board. In addition, he serves as an editor for the Rudolph’s Textbook of Pediatrics.
Versalovic is the Milton J. Finegold Professor and vice chair of Pathology & Immunology at Baylor. He is professor of pediatrics, molecular & human genetics, and molecular virology & microbiology, and co-director of the Texas Medical Center Digestive Diseases Center. He also served as past co-director of the Medical Scientist (MD/PhD) Training Program at Baylor.
Versalovic created the first microbiome center based in a children’s hospital and the first therapeutic microbiology fellowship program in the country. He helped create the new field of metagenomic medicine by exploring ways that metagenomics and microbial manipulation can be used to diagnose and treat human diseases. He served as editor-in-chief of the Manual of Clinical Microbiology, the “bible” of laboratory-based diagnosis of human infections.
Schutze and Versalovic succeed Mark W. Kline, MD, who stepped down in early 2020. A national search has been launched for a permanent pediatrics head at Baylor and Texas Children’s.