Medical School administrator helps students find balance, achieve success

Dr. Anthony (Bud) Ardolino, associate dean for medical student affairs, thinks he has the best job at the medical school.

It's not hard to understand why he feels this way. The students are smart, highly motivated, and hard working - or they wouldn't be there.

"We don't select anybody who can't handle the academic work," says Ardolino, who is a non-voting member of the Admissions Committee that reviews and decides upon student applications.

"In our admissions process, we look well beyond grades and intelligence," he says. "We select high-achieving people with compassion, and then I try to help them balance their lives while they're here. It's the best job in the building."

Ardolino was appointed to the position a year and a half ago, when Dr. Anthony Voytovich retired after more than a dozen years as associate dean.

It's hardly a job he envisioned for himself while going through medical school. "I thought I'd be involved in research," says Ardolino.

Instead, he found he preferred patients to scientific inquiry, and wound up with a residency in internal medicine at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center.

"I was supposed to go into practice with a gentleman who got sick and left medicine, so I didn't have a job," he says.

"St. Francis needed an interim director for the internal medicine residency clinic. I took the position and found I loved teaching."

For years, Ardolino has taught courses on the principles of clinical medicine and problem-based learning, along with health law and ethics seminars.

He was also medical director for the Clinical Skills Assessment Program that monitors and evaluates student performance, and was a preceptor, teaching students in his medical office.

Ardolino continues to see patients one-half day a week in the private practice of his wife, Dr. Sally Ardolino, also an internist.

As associate dean, about a quarter of his time is devoted to preparing detailed evaluations of each soon-to-graduate medical student, summarizing their performance and accomplishments, to accompany their applications for postgraduate programs.

"That's 80 students, with eight pages and about six drafts each," he says. "It's my main focus from August to November."

M.D./Ph.D. student Marissa Caudill says, "The dean for student affairs represents the interests of the students and writes our letters for residency applications, so he has personal significance for every medical student. Bud has that special charisma and warmth that makes him perfect for such a role."