Goto named Associate Chair for Clinical and Health Services Research

The below message was sent to the Department of Internal Medicine earlier this week from Chair & DEO Upi Singh, MD. 

I am pleased to announce that Michihiko Goto, MD, MS, FACP, has accepted the role of Associate Chair for Clinical and Health Services Research, effective July 1. Dr. Goto will be the second to hold this position since it was first established in 2016. For the last ten years, Eli Perencevich, MD, MS, has guided the department’s ever-expanding portfolio in this essential and unique field of translational research. We are grateful to Dr. Perencevich for his leadership and oversight of a broad array of health services research at the University of Iowa and at the VA. His focus on growing our research footprint and his direct mentorship of so many faculty members and trainees have made Iowa City a global locus for innovation in this field.

Dr. Goto is a natural successor to Dr. Perencevich, with whom he has been a productive collaborator since Dr. Goto joined us an infectious diseases fellow in 2011. After completing that fellowship and two others in the VA Quality Scholars Program and in hospital epidemiology, Dr. Goto became a faculty member in the Division of Infectious Diseases. For six years, he also served as the Network Epidemiologist for the Midwest VISN 23 region of the VA Health System. Dr. Goto is also an active member of the Center for Access & Delivery Research and Evaluation (CADRE), one of a handful of VA-funded Centers for Innovation in the US, now into its third decade in Iowa City.

In addition to projects as both a mentor and a PI within CADRE, Dr. Goto has completed and is currently conducting many other research projects funded by the VA, AHRQ, CDC, and industry. Much of his research focuses on infection prevention, healthcare epidemiology, and antimicrobial stewardship, and this work has resulted in nearly 100 peer-reviewed publications. His work often involves processing large datasets or understanding complex systems and their varied inputs. This experience in seeing the bigger picture will allow Dr. Goto to build on Dr. Perencevich’s track record of recruiting faculty researchers and mentoring them as they develop competitive, high-quality research programs of their own.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Goto on this new appointment.