S. Bruce Dowton
Professor S Bruce Dowton MB BS MD (Syd) FACMG FRACP
Professor S Bruce Dowton is an Australian-born paediatrician, clinical geneticist, molecular biologist, researcher and academic. He is currently Vice-Chancellor and President of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
Early life
Stephen Bruce Dowton was born in Ivanhoe, New South Wales in 1956. He was raised in Dubbo, NSW and attended the local high school before moving to Sydney in 1975.
Education and postdoctoral training
Undergraduate career
Dowton graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (with Honours) in 1980.
Postgraduate training
Dowton began his postgraduate training as a Professorial Intern at Repatriation Hospital, Concord in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1981 and completed his training at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston, where he held clinical and research fellowships in paediatrics and cell biology.
Doctor of Medicine
From 1990-94, he completed a doctorate of medicine in cell biology at the University of Sydney for his work on regulation of expression of genes coding for acute phases plasma proteins.
Academic appointments
Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis.
Between 1985 and 1998, Dowton held a number of positions at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1993 he was appointed Associate Dean for Medical Education, and in 1996 he became Associate Vice-Chancellor. During this time, he was Director of the Division of Medical Genetics at St Louis Children’s Hospital, leading a revitalisation of the clinical, research and education dimensions of the division.
University of New South Wales, Sydney.
In 1998 he was appointed Dean of the School of Medicine and Professor of Paediatrics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. During his tenure, UNSW implemented new educational programs, planned major new facilities, strengthened graduate-student education, doubled the amount of income from research, and developed strong ties with the health system.
He was appointed Professor Emeritus in 2005.
Harvard Medical School
Dowton returned to the United States in 2006 and was appointed as a lecturer at Harvard Medical School in 2007. He became Clinical Professor in Paediatrics in 2009.
Macquarie University
Macquarie University announced the appointment of Professor Dowton as their fifth Vice-Chancellor in July 2012; he assumed the role in September that year. In early 2013 he began a highly consultative process to establish a long-term strategic framework for the university, re-focusing the organisation’s core activities of teaching and research around a concept of “a university of service and engagement.” In a very short time, Dowton’s highly engaging personal style has become a hallmark of his Vice-Chancellorship.
Professor Dowton has held Visiting Professorial and External Examiner appointments at several universities including the University of Edinburgh, Colombia University in New York, the University of Tromsø in Norway, Hong Kong University, as well as institutions in the People’s Republic of China.
Health and affiliated institution appointments
United States: 1985 – 1997
Between 1985 and 1997 Dowton held a range of roles and consultancies as a paediatrician and medical geneticist at Children’s Hospital Medical Centre, Boston, Massachusetts; St Luke’s Hospital, Chesterfield, Missouri; Jewish Hospital of St Louis, Barnes Hospital, St Louis Children’s Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine, Shriner’s Hospitals for Crippled Children, and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St Louis, Missouri.
Australia: 1998 – 2005
Dowton returned to Sydney, New South Wales in 1998 and joined Sydney Children’s Hospital as a visiting consultant in paediatrics until his return to the United States in 2005. That year he acted as an independent consultant in Health System and Academic Development for Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia, and Higher Education and Health Care Systems for University of California Office of the President, Oakland, California.
United States: 2007 – 2012
Dowton joined Harvard Medical International in 2007 as a Senior Consultant, becoming Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in 2008. That same year he returned to Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, as a paediatrician. In addition to his management and leadership activities Professor Dowton led teams in projects that:
• developed a national chronic disease strategy for a North African country • guided development of medical schools and university governance in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kazakhstan • integrated health and higher education planning for a satellite CBD in an Australian capital city • planned clinical programs in hospitals aspiring to emerge as regional leaders • reviewed a national health system in the Caribbean.
Medical and teaching leadership
Dowton assumed his first leadership role at a relatively early age when he was appointed Assistant Professor at Washington University school of Medicine in 1986, and leader of the University’s Genetics Division. He reorganised teaching of the medical student freshman genetics class and led the initiation of a Fellowship training program in Clinical Genetics that was accredited by the American Board of Medical Genetics.
In 1993, he was appointed the first Associate Dean for Medical Education at Washington University School of Medicine. In 1994, he assumed responsibility for oversight of Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs at Washington University School of Medicine and its affiliated teaching hospitals. In 1995, he oversaw the Office of Continuing Medical Education (CME) at Washington University/Barnes Jewish Children’s Hospitals campus. During this time, the CME received unconditional re-accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education.
Dowton was appointed as Associate Vice Chancellor at Washington University in 1996. In his role, he supported development of the Young Scientist Program (YSP) at Washington University School of Medicine. This program of outreach into impoverished city high schools secured support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and was run by medical and graduate students. The YSP had three major components: students going out into local schools to teach science-related disciplines (particularly emphasising health promotion and disease prevention), a summer internship program for graduating high school students who were assigned both faculty and student mentors and an individual mentorship program between high school students and graduate students from the MD PhD and PhD programs. The project remains active 15 years after its inception. (http://ysp.wustl.edu/)
In 1998, he returned to Australia to assume the role of Dean of the Medical School at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Among the many initiatives undertaken in that role, he led a complete reformulation of the medical school teaching program, a process which delivering an entirely innovative curriculum characterised by integration across three phases and a novel system of portfolio based assessment.
He also launched the Rural Clinical Schools Initiative to help address the problems associated with the recruitment and retention of physicians to serve in regional, rural and remote Australia. The success of this program was echoed around Australia so that all medical schools in Australia now have rural teaching enterprises with many of them based around the organisational and education models crafted at the University of New South Wales.
In 2001, the NSW Minister of Health, the Hon. Craig Knowles, invited Dowton to establish a new ministerial council to oversee reorganisation of graduate medical education across these institutions, the Medical Education and Training Council. Dowton also served as chair of the Committee of Deans of Australia in Medical Schools (CDAMS) from 2002 to 2004. During this time, the organisation saw further consolidation and strengthening of the funding base for the Rural Clinical Schools Initiative.
As part of a multi-pronged initiative as chair of CDAMS, with other decanal colleagues, he spearheaded the establishment and implementation of the Indigenous Health Project through a partnership with the Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health in the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing implementation of the Indigenous Health Project. With this platform, a nationwide indigenous Health Curriculum Framework was developed and ratified.
International experience and roles
In addition to substantial professional work experience of many years in both USA and Australia, Dowton has worked on projects around the world, most notably in his role as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Harvard Medical International/Partners Harvard Medical International. Between 2006 and 2011, Dowton worked on projects and initiatives in: • Australia • USA • People’s Republic of China • India • Malaysia, providing consulting expertise on governance in a multi-hospital private health care chain with particular emphasis on developing information systems and quality improvement initiative across the system • Singapore • Hong Kong • Kazakhstan, providing strategic planning for development of a new medical school within an iconic new national university • Saudi Arabia • Libya, conducting a feasibility study and implementation, for a USA energy company, of developing a comprehensive national diabetes program as a corporate and social responsibility initiative. • Greece • UAE • Oman • UK • Brazil • Sweden • Dominican Republic, reviewing the national health system on behalf of the President of the Dominican Republic.
He is the principal at Dowton Consulting International, and provides independent consultancy for healthcare and higher education around the world. While serving as Vice-Chancellor and President of Macquarie University, Dowton identifies colleagues and organisations around the world who can assist his many professional and institutional contacts that seek to draw upon his extensive experience in higher education and health care.
Publications
Dowton has written extensively in a range of publications. A complete bibliography can be found at xxx