Toni R. Leeth, MPH, has been appointed assistant dean for Strategic Planning at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, a new position created to help keep UAB Medicine moving forward in its vision of being the preferred academic medical center of the 21st century.
As a member of the senior leadership team, Leeth will take direction from the dean and will work with departments throughout the School of Medicine and colleagues from the UAB Health System to ensure growth goals outlined in AMC21, the UAB Medicine strategic plan, are being met.
“Creating this position allows the School of Medicine to sharpen our focus and concentrate our efforts so we can be most effective in our missions of research, education and patient care,” said Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., senior vice president for Medicine and dean of the School of Medicine. “Toni has great depth and success in leading academic medicine departments; her experience and vision will serve UAB well.”
“It’s an exciting time to be at UAB and the School of Medicine with the AMC21 plan entering its third year, and it’s a wonderful opportunity for me to come back to the school under the leadership of Dr. Vickers,” Leeth said.
Leeth, a Mississippi native, came to UAB in 1998 to work as a lab research coordinator after earning a degree in microbiology from Mississippi State University, and earned a Master of Public Health degree in epidemiology from UAB in 2002. She moved to the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery in 2003, developing research support for the division, before accepting a position as administrative director of research at the University of Minnesota’s Surgical Administrative Center in 2006.
Leeth spent three years as administrative director for the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota before returning to UAB in early November.