President of the Medical Center, James Glenn records

In December 1987, Dr. John Wallis Rowe was appointed President of The Mount Sinai Medical Center, which is composed of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and The Mount Sinai Hospital. With the formation of the Mount Sinai Health System and then Mount Sinai New York University Health in 1998, the title of President of The Mount Sinai Hospital was assumed by Barry Freedman. Dr. Rowe left Mount Sinai in September 2000 to become the President of Aetna Healthcare. Mr. Freedman was appointed Acting President after his departure.

James Francis Glenn (1928-2009) was born in Kentucky. He attended Duke University School of Medicine, and became an urologist. He was Chief of Urology at Duke from 1963-80 and then Dean of Emory School of Medicine from 1980-83. Dr. Glenn became President of The Mount Sinai Medical Center and Acting Dean of Mount Sinai School of Medicine of The City University of New York in June, 1983. He was hired to be the first Chief Executive Officer of the Medical Center who would not also be the Dean. The Trustees, under the Asnes Committee, had determined to split the offices, leaving Mount Sinai with a leadership structure of President and CEO of the Medical Center, a Dean of the School of Medicine, and a Director (Chief Operating Officer) of the Hospital. Two Deans were appointed in 1984: Lester Salans, MD, who served briefly, and then Nathan Kase, MD.

During his brief tenure at Mount Sinai, Dr. Glenn took the initiative in locating a space on campus that would allow Mount Sinai’s full-time faculty to have their practices in the same facility, helping them to build an identity around being the Mount Sinai Faculty Practice Associates. This space was Guggenheim Hall at 5 East 98th Street, the former home of The Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing. In addition, he devoted a great deal of attention to the advent of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) to New York and the planning for a major hospital building project at Mount Sinai, the Guggenheim Pavilion.

Dr. Glenn was also responsible for initiating applications to New York State for Mount Sinai to provide heart, liver and bone marrow transplants. Unfortunately, a heart transplant was performed at Mount Sinai prior to receipt of the official State Certificate of Need approval. Dr. Glenn accepted the responsibility for this error and resigned. Dr. Glenn left Mount Sinai in early 1987. He returned to Kentucky and spent his remaining career at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. He died in 2009.