Lindor named executive vice provost of Health Solutions

Keith D. Lindor is leaving his position as dean of Mayo Medical School Rochester, Minn., and professor of medicine at the College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, to become executive vice provost of Health Solutions, effective Jan. 3, 2012. 

In his new position at Arizona State University, Lindor will lead all of ASU’s health related activities and will have responsibility for developing the new School of the Science of Health Care Delivery and working with others to develop the ASU’s master’s degree in the Science of Health Care Delivery that will be embedded in the curriculum of the Mayo Medical School in Arizona.

The School of Nutrition and Health Promotion will report to him, as will the Department of Biomedical Informatics. The College of Nursing and Health Innovation is part of Health Solutions, and other related units include the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering and numerous research centers and programs including the Center for Health Innovation & Clinical Trials, the Center for Health Information and Research, the Center for World Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, The Health Care Delivery and Policy Program and the Healthcare Transformation Institute.  

“At ASU we are focused on challenges, and improving health care is at the top of our challenge list,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “Better health care will require new models for education and research and new kinds of collaborations. That is why ASU has reconfigured all of the university’s health related schools and centers, and entered into a variety of collaborations with our partner, Mayo Clinic.

“Keith Lindor has already undertaken an innovative approach to improving health care in helping to conceptualize the Mayo Medical School – Arizona Campus, which includes a key collaboration with ASU. He will be responsible for bringing together all relevant academic personnel at ASU to coordinate with Mayo in our desire to transform health care and produce health care professionals who are prepared to lead in the medical profession of the future.”

“Dr. Lindor is exceptionally creative and innovative and an ideal person to lead our programs that will produce the health care professionals who will transform health care in the future,” said Elizabeth D. Capaldi, executive vice president and provost of ASU.

“I took this position because of the opportunity to link the resources of two great institutions, Mayo and ASU, to improve health care outcomes,” Lindor said. “I can’t imagine that there is a better place to pursue that challenge.”

Mayo Clinic recently announced the expansion of Mayo Medical School in Rochester to Arizona, and a major differentiating feature at this new branch of Mayo Medical School is that all students will complete a specialized master’s degree in the Science of Health Care Delivery granted by ASU, concurrently with their medical degree from Mayo Medical School. Mayo is believed to be the first medical school to offer such a program.

Over the past nine years, ASU has worked strategically to establish a comprehensive educational and research relationship with the Mayo Clinic aimed at improving health outcomes for the people of Arizona and the nation. The resulting multi-faceted Mayo-ASU collaboration is based at Mayo Clinic Arizona, but also extends across the Mayo Clinic system to its medical practice and research groups in Rochester, Minn., and Jacksonville, Fla.

The Mayo Clinic/ASU partnership has produced innovative degree programs, such as dual degrees in medicine and law, medicine and business administration, and medicine and biomedical engineering. It also has produced exceptional research initiatives that are addressing some of today’s most important health care issues, such as in metabolic and vascular biology, cancer, personalized medicine, bioengineering, intestinal microecology and health care innovation.

Lindor received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (1975) and a medical degree from the Mayo Medical School (1979), and did a residency in internal medicine at Bowman Gray School of Medicine (1979-82). He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM).

His honors include being named a MacMillan Management Scholar, Internal Named Professor in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, and Caro M. Gatton Professor of Digestive Disease Research, all at Mayo Clinic.

He began his career at Mayo in 1983 after serving a year as general medical officer, Indian Health Services, Sells, Ariz.