Former Dean John Hutton, MD, Remembered

Passionate. Smart. Supportive. Admired. Inquisitive. Insightful.

These were just a few of the adjectives used by colleagues to describe John Hutton, MD, the College of Medicine’s third-longest tenured dean, who passed away Sunday morning, June 19. Hutton served as the college’s 42nd dean from 1987 until 2002. He was 79 and had been diagnosed in March with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. 

"John was one of our best deans,” said Jerry Lingrel, PhD, interim chair of molecular genetics, microbiology and biochemistry, who knew Hutton before he came to Cincinnati in 1984. "He was always trying to help research and make things work. He was passionate about having a good medical center. He was helping everyone all the time. He was a special person all the way around. He was one of a kind.”

Lingrel recalled that Hutton was a leader whom you could approach and debate issues. "He always told you exactly why he was making his decision. I won some and lost some with him. But whenever I lost, I never got mad at him because he always had good rationale for things.”

Hutton was named dean shortly after Andrew Filak Jr., MD, senior associate dean for academic affairs, was appointed interim associate dean for graduate medical education. Hutton quickly removed the "interim" from Filak's title and the pair worked closely throughout his tenure as dean and long thereafter. 

"It was a wonderful experience being a part of his team," Filak said. "He was not only my boss, but my mentor and role model. At one point he referred to me as one of his kids, putting me among the many that he mentored and advised and whose careers he helped shape. That was one of the highest honors that I have ever received. He taught me to always treat everyone with respect and to learn to disagree without being disagreeable."

Sandra Degen, PhD, former UC vice president for research and now an emerita professor of pediatrics, remembered her first interaction with Hutton when she and her husband, Jay Degen, PhD, came to Cincinnati in 1985 to interview for positions at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

"I recall a dinner during our job interview with John where he brought his daughter, Elizabeth, who was 5 years old then. Although we had not even thought about having a family, that had a big impact on me,” Degen said. "He had no hesitation including a 5-year-old at a job interview. Mixing family and work was approved of and not two separate things. And later, when our daughter, Lindsay, did come along, John could not have been more supportive of us having flexible hours so that we could always be there for our child. If I had to do my life over again, I would still have come to Cincinnati and that is all because of John.”

Hutton helped recruit many people to the college and Cincinnati Children’s, including chairs for 20 of the College’s 22 departments while he was dean. One was Thomas Boat, MD, who Hutton help entice to Cincinnati from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1993.

"He was supportive of Children’s and its rapid growth of faculty and research agendas. He was very good at connecting Children’s research with the College of Medicine research programs so that relationship was mutually beneficial,” Boat recalled. 

"John was always very bright, very inquisitive and very insightful. He was always able to diffuse tense or difficult situations and I think people always liked to work with him for that reason,” he added.

Boat also noted that Hutton continued as an important leader at the College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children’s after stepping down as dean in 2002 providing high-level leadership for the burgeoning biomedical informatics program, which became a department within the college in 2013. 

"I will always remember Dr. Hutton as a true Renaissance man: a scientist, humanist, leader, and father of the highest distinction,” said Peter White, PhD, chair of biomedical informatics. "As the founder of both the Divisions of Developmental Biology and Biomedical Informatics, his spirit of curiosity, intellectual rigor, and compassion has led both divisions to greatness. That spirit will continue to shine brightly through our halls as it inspires new generations of clinicians and scientists.”

Hutton was raised in Ashland, Kentucky, attended Harvard College and was a graduate fellow at Rockefeller University for two years before entering Harvard Medical School, where he graduated in 1964. Hutton completed his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital, was a staff associate at the National Heart Institute for two years and then completed a residency at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. He also was on staff at the Jackson Laboratory and Roches Institute of Molecular Biology before joining the faculty of the University of Kentucky School of Medicine in 1971. Hutton remained in Lexington until 1980, rising to professor and vice chair of the Department of Medicine. He also spent two years as acting chair of the Department of Medicine. 

From 1980 to 1984 Hutton served as professor of medicine and biochemistry and director of the division of hematology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He also was the associate chief of staff for research and development at the Audie L. Murphy Veterans Affairs Hospital in San Antonio. 

In 1984 he was recruited to Cincinnati by William Schubert, MD, then president of Cincinnati Children’s, to become Albert B. Sabin Professor of Pediatrics. He later was named vice chairman of basic science research.

Hutton stepped into the dean’s position on Aug. 1, 1987. He replaced Ken Rowe, MD, who had served as acting dean since Aug. 1, 1986 following the departure of Dean Robert Daniels, MD. Hutton inherited a school budget of $104 million and just over $30 million in annual research funding. By the time he left, the college had broken the $100 million mark in research funding fulfilling his goal of turning the college into a medical research powerhouse. Through his 15 years as dean, the college achieved numerous accomplishments, including:

• Centralization of planning, management and reporting relationships of the college’s faculty practice plan through UC Physicians.
• Creation of the Pathways Program, helping local underprivileged minority middle school, high school and college students to foster interest in science and health care fields. 
• Development of a dual admissions program providing provisional entrance to the College of Medicine for promising high school students beginning their undergraduate studies. 
• Creation of the office of faculty affairs.
• Establishment of the Clinical Skills Teaching Laboratory and the Center for Competency Development and Assessment, which uses standardized patients to evaluate student clinical performance and was the first to use digital recording to document students’ acquisition of clinical skills. 
• Development of an MD/MBA program and a National Institutes of Health-funded MD/PhD Physician Scientist Training Program.
• Changing the education of medical students to provide better integration of content with limits on hours of sit-down lectures and an increased emphasis on small group interactive learning experiences. 
• Creation of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in partnership with the College of Engineering. 
• Creation of 23 new endowed chairs.
• Building the Medical Arts Building (now known as the UC Health Physicians’ Office Building-Clifton) and the Montgomery office building, and beginning construction of University Pointe in West Chester.

"We really did well while he was dean,” Lingrel said. "He was the one that really made this medical school.”

On June 21, 2001 Hutton announced plans to step down as dean of the College. At the time, he was one of the five longest-tenured medical school deans in the country. He would serve until June 30, 2002.

After stepping down, Hutton returned to research at Cincinnati Children's. He focused his efforts on bioinformatics and served as the principal investigator of a research grant awarded to UC by the National Library of Medicine to develop Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems (the IAIMS award). Hutton continued to author numerous scientific papers, served as a member and chair of the National Institutes of Health Biochemistry Study Section, and received awards for distinguished service from both the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the American Society of Hematology.

In 2003 he received the Daniel Drake Medal. The award was created in 1985 by Dean Robert Daniels, MD, as part of a year-long tribute for the bicentennial of Drake's birth. After a hiatus in 1986, Hutton as dean made the award a part of the college’s annual Honors Day celebration and established the annual Drake Dinner honoring the latest recipients. In 1988, Hutton established two distinct categories for honorees; one for distinguished contributions to medical research while the second lauds those for excellence as a clinician-teacher. Hutton also broadened the award’s eligibility from only current faculty to living College alumni and residency graduates.

Hutton continued his work even after being diagnosed with ALS. "He was still coming in to teach medical students every week, meeting with coworkers in the Division of Biomedical Informatics and other collaborators, and leaving misdirected mail and/or supportive Post-It notes in my cubicle, editorial finishing touches on a new BMI textbook concluding only a few weeks ago,” his son, John Hutton, MD, said after his father’s death.

Hutton is survived by his wife, Mary Ellyn, three children, Becky, John and Elizabeth, and seven grandchildren. The Hutton family requests that gifts be directed to the Hutton Lectureship in Ethics Fund at the College of Medicine or Hospice of Cincinnati.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m., July 12 in Kresge Auditorium to celebrate his life.