Following an extensive national search, Bert W. O’Malley, Jr, MD, has been appointed as the new President and Chief Executive Officer of the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), the flagship academic hospital for the University of Maryland Medical System and an anchor institution in Baltimore. Dr. O’Malley is scheduled to join UMMC in early November, where he will have clinical responsibilities at UMMC and the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center (UMGCCC) in addition to his administrative and leadership roles. Once he arrives, Alison Brown, MPH, will continue to serve as President of the UMMC Midtown Campus.
For Dr. O’Malley, a practicing otorhinolaryngologist, the appointment represents a homecoming. He served in multiple leadership positions at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland Medical Center from 1999 to 2003, including as Professor of Surgery and Chief of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery and Associate Director of UMGCCC.
At the University of Pennsylvania Health System, Dr. O’Malley serves as Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, Director of the Penn Specialty Network, and Physician Executive of Penn Specialty Physicians. He has built physician networks among independent specialty physicians with Penn Medicine. He is also the Gabriel Tucker Professor and Chair of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery in the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and holds joint appointments in the Departments of Neurosurgery, Radiation Oncology, the Abramson Cancer Center, and the School of Dental Medicine.
Career Achievements
The co-inventor and developer of a series of novel robotic surgical procedures called transoral robotic surgery, Dr. O’Malley brings clinical expertise in the area of skull base surgery, robotic surgery, and head and neck cancer. Transoral robotic surgery was a critical development in ear, nose, and throat surgery, allowing surgeons better access to areas of the throat for the removal of cancers and benign lesions via a minimally invasive robotic approach. It also provides patients with a quicker and easier recovery as well as improved swallowing results compared with alternative treatments.
Dr. O’Malley also cofounded the first human robotics head and neck surgery (as well as skull base surgery) program in the world and was Co–Principal Investigator of the first institutional review board–approved human clinical trial for robotic surgery in his specialty. In addition, he served as Co–Principal Investigator of the clinical trials that led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of transoral robotic surgical procedures in 2009 and 2014.
Dr. O’Malley began his academic faculty career at Johns Hopkins University in 1995, where he rose to Associate Professor and Director of Gene and Molecular Therapy in the Department of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery.
