Pasadena, CA – June 7, 2021 – The Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine announced today the naming of Jonathan Finkelstein, MD, MPH as Senior Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship. Dr. Finkelstein will direct the Office of Research and Scholarship in the role previously held by Elizabeth McGlynn, PhD, who served as Interim Senior Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship. As part of the school’s senior leadership team, Dr. Finkelstein will be responsible for overseeing the school’s ongoing efforts to build a robust and engaging environment in which research and scholarship by both students and faculty can thrive.
“Dr. Finkelstein is highly unusual in that he is a master educator, a highly accomplished researcher, and an outstanding clinician,” said Mark Schuster, MD, PhD, Founding Dean and Chief Executive Officer. “I look forward to his joining our school’s leadership team, and fostering scholarly opportunities for our students and faculty. I also would like to thank Dr. McGlynn for her generosity in taking on the interim role, and launching our Office of Research and Scholarship.”
In his new role, Dr. Finkelstein will work collaboratively with senior leaders in the school and research experts throughout Kaiser Permanente. He will manage the teams that support students developing their scholarly projects, support faculty in their pursuit of scholarly work, and oversee the research administration group that is responsible for the administrative management of extramurally funded research undertaken by faculty and students.
“I am proud to join the innovative learning environment at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine,” said Dr. Finkelstein. “I have focused on the training and mentorship of the next generation of professionals throughout my career and look forward to helping students practice critical thinking, evaluate new approaches to improving health of patients and populations, and develop a passion for contributing to the field through research and scholarship.”
An academic generalist physician, Dr. Finkelstein comes to KPSOM from Boston Children’s Hospital, where he served as Senior Vice President for Safety and Quality and Chief Patient Safety and Quality Officer, a role in which he was responsible for overseeing patient safety and quality improvement. Dr. Finkelstein received his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania and completed his pediatric training at Boston Children’s Hospital. For the past 14 years, he has co-directed the Harvard-wide Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship program, which has trained more than 140 postdoctoral fellows. He was a Professor of Pediatrics and of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-directed the Clinical Epidemiology and Population Health course for 9 years. He has more than two decades of experience as a pediatric health services researcher and medical educator, bringing together classic research paradigms with quality improvement and implementation science methods.
Dr. Finkelstein’s own research has been funded by National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other organizations. He has focused on the link between the quality of clinical care and the health of the population overall, including testing community-based approaches to promoting appropriate use of antibiotics in primary care practice.
