Department of Medicine Grand Rounds

TOPIC: BUMCT Quality Improvement Journey
SPEAKER: Dr. Gordon Carr

Dr. Gordon Carr was born in Richmond, VA.  He obtained a BA in History and also completed his premedical courses at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT.  He then obtained his MD degree from the University of Virginia, where he graduated AOA.  He continued his training in Internal Medicine, and then Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine, at the University of Chicago.  His experiences as a trainee caring for critically ill patients at academic medical centers inspired in him a passion to improve academic healthcare delivery – to preserve what is noble about the academic mission, while creating a safer and more reliable approach to clinical care.  As an academic fellow, his research focused on causes of preventable death in hospitalized patients. 

After fellowship, he joined the Department of Medicine at the University of Arizona in 2011. His first role as a physician leader was as the Medical Director of the ICU at BUMCS (then known as UPH hospital).  In this role he instituted a closed staffing model and daily multidisciplinary rounds.  He then expanded roles to take on the Directorship of the MICU at BUMCT (then known as UMC).  There he worked with other leaders to implement team rounds and a closed staffing model.  He reformed the Code Blue team and led numerous quality and safety projects related to mortality reduction, length of stay, sepsis care, and sedation and mechanical ventilation practices.  BUMCT has now consistently been ranked among the top 10 University Health Consortium programs for Pulmonary/Critical Care mortality.

As an ICU attending, he earned multiple teaching awards for his work with students and residents.  He also founded the Interstitial Lung Disease Program at the University of Arizona, bringing several high profile clinical trials to Southern Arizona and building a multidisciplinary clinical program to serve patients with complex lung diseases.  He graduated from Banner’s Advanced Leadership Program for Physicians in 2015. 

In 2015, he was named Vice-Chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Medicine.  In this role he worked to build physician engagement in support of performance improvement, reliability, and efficiency.  He also worked with BUMG administrative leaders to improve data transparency and leadership infrastructure within the physician practice.

In March 2016, he became the CMO at BUMCT, where he has been working with the Banner team to improve hospital operations, building a foundation of quality and safety to support the future of academic medicine in Arizona.

Department of Medicine Grand Rounds

The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.  The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson designates this live activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s) ™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

All Faculty, CME Planning Committee Members, and CME Office Reviewers have disclosed that they have no financial relationships with commercial interests that would constitute a conflict of interest concerning this CME activity.

Learning Objectives:

• Diagnose a variety of internal medicine illnesses
• Understand more clearly advances in therapy
• Become truly professional physicians

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