New Chairs for Orthopedic Surgery, Urology

Two current faculty members have been appointed to chair P&S clinical departments.

William N. Levine, MD, is the new chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and orthopedic surgeon-in-chief of NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Levine succeeded Louis U. Bigliani, MD, who retired as chair after leading the department for 16 years.

Dr. Levine joined Columbia and the hospital staff in 1998. He served the orthopedics department as vice chair for education, director of its residency and fellowship programs, chief of the shoulder service, and co-director of the Center for Shoulder, Elbow & Sports Medicine.

A former tennis professional and starting goalie for Stanford University’s varsity hockey team, Dr. Levine is Columbia University’s head team physician, responsible for providing care for 31 Columbia intercollegiate athletic teams.

James McKiernan, MD, the George F. Cahill Professor of Urology, has been named chair of the Department of Urology and urologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, succeeding Mitchell C. Benson, who stepped down as chair in 2013 after leading the department for nearly 10 years.

Dr. McKiernan, a P&S graduate, completed his training in urology and general surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital then completed a urologic surgical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He specializes in urologic oncology, particularly surgical therapy in high-risk patients with bladder and kidney cancers.

His research, funded by NIH and the Prostate Cancer Foundation, focuses on novel drug and biomarker development, as well as comparative effectiveness, in urologic oncology.