Senior VP for Health Sciences Michael Good to step away from administrative posts, return to faculty at University of Utah
University of Utah Senior Vice President for Health Sciences Michael L. Good will step away from his administrative roles at the conclusion of a national search for his successor.
Good, who has been CEO of University of Utah Health since 2018, also served as dean of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine. He also served as interim president of the overall university from April 2021 to August 2021.
To the larger community, Good was a calm and trusted voice during the COVID-19 pandemic. When Utah went on lockdown in March 2020, he delivered weekly updates through his “chalk talk” videos and “Three Things” emails.
A member of the state’s medical leadership team, Good helped to guide masking and vaccine policy.
In a message to his colleagues, Good revealed that he had asked University of Utah President Taylor Randall “to begin the process to determine my successor at the University of Utah Health.”
Good wrote, “The math is speaking. In June, I complete 40 years in academic medicine, with 20 years serving in a dean or vice president role; in July, Danette and I celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary; in August, I turn 65, register for Medicare, and start my seventh year at the University of Utah.”
Good, 64, said he is reminded of a minister who asked a parishioner about his sermon.
The parishioner replies: “Well your message was really quite good, but you preached through three really good stopping points!”
Good wrote, “Being conscientious not to preach through good stopping points, calculus suggests this is a good time for transitions.”
In a statement, Randall expressed gratitude for Good’s “wisdom, patience and calm guidance during a time of great change on our campus and in the community and world around us.”
His leadership has “strengthened the university’s patient care, research, education and service enterprises and leaves us well-positioned as we enter a time of unprecedented growth,” Randall said.
A search committee to hire Good’s successor will be formed in the coming weeks.
Good has overseen a $5.7 billion health system, 17 hospitals and clinics, 2.2 million patient visits and 25,000 faculty, staff and students at the academic health sciences center.
Over the past 40 years, Good’s career has included patient care as an anesthesiologist and health care leader at the Malcolm Randall VA Medical Center, North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System, University of Florida and Utah.
Good has worked to bolster the University of Utah Health’s status as one of the nation’s premier centers of academic health sciences. His leadership enhanced its reputation as an academic health system that provides world-class health care, research, education, and service to the state, region and nation.
He has led the organization through a period of remarkable growth, including: the naming and reconstruction of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine; opening the Sugar House clinic, Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital and the Kathryn F. Kirk Comprehensive Cancer Care and Women’s Cancers Center; breaking ground for Huntsman Cancer Institute-Vineyard; and planning for a health center and hospital in West Valley City.
Good also guided the implementation of transformational educational and research initiatives, growing the university’s health sciences research operation to $458 million in grant funding in 2023, with more than 900 research faculty.
Following a sabbatical, Good said he looks forward to contributing to medical education as a professor.
