VCU news

By Carrie Carroll

The Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association (VHHA) has bestowed its 2013 Distinguished Service Award on Sheldon M. Retchin, M.D., senior vice president for health sciences and CEO of VCU Health System, as part of its 2013 Outstanding Service Awards.

The 2013 Outstanding Service Awards were awarded to three Virginians, including Retchin, for their exceptional leadership and significant contributions to hospitals, health systems and health care in general. Deborah R. Lipes, retired CEO of Bath Community Hospital, and Frank R. Campbell, Ph.D., chairman of the Danville Regional Medical Center Board of Directors also were honored.

The 2013 Distinguished Service Award honors past or present CEOs of VHHA member institutions that have long records of performing outstanding, valuable or unique services to the hospital and health system community. As senior vice president for health sciences and CEO of VCU Health System, Retchin has a responsibility for five health science schools: allied health, dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy, which have a total enrollment of more than 4,000 undergraduate, professional and graduate students.

He oversees the clinical enterprise, which includes management of VCU Medical Center, a teaching hospital of 865 licensed beds with more than 650 post-graduate trainees in all medical and surgical specialties; the faculty practice plan; MCV Physicians, which includes roughly 650 faculty physicians; Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU; and Virginia Premier Health Plan, a provider-sponsored Medicaid HMO with approximately 150,000 members statewide.

Retchin is a national expert in health policy and health care delivery, with special expertise on the Medicare program. He also is as a national expert on the role of the safety net in health services delivery and has testified before Congress. Of his many public service appointments, he currently serves as chairman of the Advisory Panel on Health Care of the Association of American Medical Colleges. He served on the 17-member Council on Graduate Medical Education, appointed by then U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt, and was co-chairman of the 20th report released by the council. In 2007, he was appointed to the Virginia Health Reform Commission, serving as chairman of the Access to Care Workgroup.

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