New leadership for Graduate Medical Education at John A. Burns School of Medicine

Drs. Holly Olson, Naleen Andrade and Lee Buenconsejo-Lum with Dean Jerris Hedges, MD, at JABSOM.

Lee Buenconsejo-Lum, MD, FAAFP, has been selected to lead Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs at the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM). A graduate of Leilehua High, Stanford University and JABSOM (1994), Buenconsejo-Lum is responsible for the oversight and administration of the 22 MD specialty-training programs that are based at partner medical centers throughout Hawai’i, employing some 235 MD trainees.

Dr. Buenconsejo-Lum succeeds Naleen Andrade, MD, who served as the Designated Institutional Official (DIO) from 2012 until June 30, 2016.

“Two very fine people are passing the baton,” said Dean Jerris Hedges, MD, as he announced the transition on June 30, at an annual gathering for Physician Residents and Residency Program Faculty.

“Dr. Andrade is a phenomenal physician and leader, and she has worked very hard to make sure that we have strong resident participation in our programs,” said Dr. Hedges. “She set up a variety of processes that helped the residents better understand their training and strengthened the orientation programs for incoming interns.”  Dr. Andrade, through her collaborative work, has also strengthened the entire system that is needed to operate high-quality GME programs.

Dr. Andrade (JABSOM 1982), former Chair of the JABSOM Department of Psychiatry and past Chair of The Queen’s Health Systems Board, said the new team led by Buenconsejo-Lum and her Deputy DIO, Dr. Holly Olson, is dynamic.

“Dr. Buenconsejo-Lum is not just a product of this medical school and the first graduating class of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, where she most recently served as Residency Program Director. She is a phenomenal scholar who is nationally recognized for her work with cancer, particularly in the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands,” said Andrade.

Dr. Holly Olson, an honors graduate of West Point and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and physician of Obstetrics & Gynecology who served as the DIO for eight years at Tripler Army Medical Center.  She is currently faculty in JABSOM’s Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

“It really is going to take a team,” Dr. Buenconsejo-Lum told the gathering of department chairs, program directors, and incoming and current MD residents in the traditional reception held at JABSOM the night before the new Graduate Medical Education year begins on July 1.  “The theme really is collaboration and communication, and we’re going to need each and every one of you” to help maintain and achieve excellence in education and care for our community, said Dr. Buenconsejo-Lum. She said the school is committed to gathering community support to enhance residency and fellowship training opportunities to train future doctors.  More than 80% of physicians who graduate from JABSOM and perform their residency training in Hawai’i stay in the islands to practice medicine.

Dr. Andrade will be returning to the JABSOM Department of Psychiatry to continue her research in finding more culturally appropriate ways of treating mental illness in Native Hawaiians.  Additionally, she is undertaking a new career as a minister, a calling that she said she has had since before she becoming an MD. “I chose back then not to answer the call to become a minister but to come back to school to be a physician, and now I've made the decision to go back to seminary and to finish and get my ordination,” said Andrade. She will enter the seminary in September. “That’s my next adventure," she said.

About the John A. Burns School of Medicine

The John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa honors its unique research environment to excel in science-based efforts to eliminate diseases that disproportionately affect people in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific region. The school obtains some $50 million annually in external research funding and offers degrees in Medicine, in Biomedical Sciences, Communication Sciences & Disorders, and Medical Technology, and trains physicians in MD Residency programs in partnership with Hawai’i’s top community-based medical centers.

For more information, visit: http://jabsom.hawaii.edu/news-media/uh-med-now/