A native of Abbeville, Laurinda Calongne was named chief academic officer for Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in December 2011. She has a master’s of social work from Tulane University and has spent almost two decades working in medical education. President George W. Bush appointed her to the Council on Graduate Medical Education in 2001. She unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2008 and the state Senate in 2009. Read the full Q&A from the new issue of Business Report here. Here’s a sample:
Your position—chief academic officer—is one Our Lady of the Lake hasn’t had before, and many people might be unfamiliar with what it entails. What do you do, in layman’s terms?
“Many people don’t realize that the Lake has been a major teaching hospital since 2006. On any given day we have 70 residents (physicians in training) representing eight different medical specialties. It’s my job to make sure those residents have faculty (medical staff) who are qualified to teach and supervise them, and have an environment that is conducive to learning yet focused on patient safety and clinical excellence. I am also the person responsible for providing oversight of all resident training by making sure our organization follows all state and federal regulations and national accreditation standards.”
