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I. Dodd Wilson, M.D.
Biography

I. Dodd Wilson, M.D., is chancellor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).  

He came to UAMS in 1986 as a professor and dean of the College of Medicine from the University of Minnesota Medical School, where he was a professor and vice chairman of the Department of Medicine. He was named executive vice chancellor at UAMS in July 1994.

Named chancellor in October 2000, Wilson has remained committed to meeting the critical health care needs of all Arkansans. In addition to overseeing the education of Arkansas’ future doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health-related professionals, his leadership has garnered significant private and public funds to support numerous UAMS expansion projects. Those projects include a new university hospital, the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute addition, the Psychiatric Research Institute and a new education building.  

Wilson also has made it a priority to increase UAMS’ services outside Little Rock by establishing new clinical and education programs through its nationally recognized use of technology that links UAMS’ subspecialists with patients and their doctors across Arkansas. For example, the number of Area Health Education Centers (AHECs) under Wilson has grown from six to eight. These nationally recognized centers provide primary health care to the regions they serve and are where many family medicine physicians complete their residencies. The AHECs also provide continuing education for health care professionals who live and work nearby. He also has overseen the establishment of eight Regional Centers on Aging, putting 90 percent of elderly Arkansans within 60 miles of an interdisciplinary geriatric health care team.

Wilson has spearheaded the creation of a satellite campus in Fayetteville to address growing health care work force shortages. UAMS-Northwest will open in 2009 and will include the UAMS colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health Related Professions.

Research also has taken precedence for Wilson, and UAMS’ level of research funding now ranks in the top 20 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities. In the 2008 fiscal year, UAMS secured approximately $98.8 million in research grants and contracts from all extramural sources. Grants and contracts from all federal sources was approximately $63.4 million and of this amount $49.9 million came from the National Institutes of Health. This represents significant growth over the past 25 years; in 1984, UAMS received about $6 million in grants and contracts from federal sources to support research.

In April 2005, he became the first recipient of the Harry P. Ward Chancellor’s Chair at UAMS. It was the first chancellor’s chair endowed at an Arkansas university. He is past chair of the Council of Deans of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and served on its Executive Committee. He served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Academic Health Centers.

Wilson is a graduate of Dartmouth College and received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School.

He and his wife, Ginger, have three grown children: Matt, Kit and Dan, and seven grandchildren.

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