Rohit Varma speaks at Keck Medicine of USC’s first annual meeting and health care conference, held Nov. 4 on the Health Sciences Campus.

Alumni, residents, parents and friends of Keck Medicine of USC attended the first Annual Meeting and Health Care Conference recently, learning details of the educational programs, academic medical research and outstanding clinical care taking place at Keck Medical Center of USC and the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and the importance of philanthropy to make these things happen.

The program, held Nov. 4 on the Health Sciences Campus, included continuing medical education (CME) sessions on a wide range of topics, tours of new buildings on campus and a lively luncheon, and featured conversations about the growth, triumphs and future plans of Keck Medicine.

Rohit Varma, MD, MPH, dean of the Keck School and director of the USC Gayle and Edward Roski Eye Institute, spoke during the luncheon about how collaborative efforts among the different USC schools can help make these medical advances happen.

“We at USC are really fortunate,” he began. “We have 19 professional schools and we have so much expertise in many different and diverse areas from the arts and the humanities to policy and engineering. There is an abundance of disciplines that medicine can collaborate and converge with to be creative about new ways of learning and managing health and disease.”

Rod Hanners, COO of Keck Medicine and CEO of Keck Medical Center, provided a brief history of how Keck Medicine came to be and discussed many of the recent accolades that the medical center has earned, including the recent rankings in U.S. News and World Report and the Leapfrog Group’s A rating for Keck Hospital of USC in patient safety. He highlighted the medical enterprise’s designated centers of excellence and noted Keck Medicine’s growing network of providers.

by Amanda Busick