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"He's up for the Oscar's, you know," Arthur Rubenstein's secretary, Shiela Gillespie, informs me as I walk into the office. Seeing my puzzled expression, she explains herself. "He had a part in the Spoof. It's an annual med school production."

I nod my head, still bewildered.

"The medical students had the Spoof [a week from] last Saturday night, and they asked me to act in it," Rubenstein, the newly appointed dean of Penn's School of Medicine, replies with a wry smile as I ask him about his performance.

"They had a skit about who was the new dean at Penn, and so when they were all arguing about how it was them, I ran on and said it was me," he says grinning delightedly from ear to ear. "It was great fun! I'm no good at acting, really, I just like being with the students."

Indeed, Gillespie informs me later, being with the students has been Rubenstein's top priority since coming to Penn nearly five months ago.

"He's told me that no matter what, or how busy he is, the students come first. 'It's the dean's thing to do,' he tells me -- his door is always open to them. He does this for the love of the students."

For a man at the helm of Penn's medical school and still-infantile Penn Medicine program, Rubenstein seems highly optimistic about the future. His next and biggest step, he says, is outlining the Health System's new strategic plan.

"We have a retreat coming up Thursday and Friday, and we're going to talk about what we want to look like in the next five years," he says. "I have some view, but it shouldn't be my view, it should be faculty and student driven. We're setting up committees and retreats, and we're going to give and take until we find the right plan for us. I've committed myself to this."

According to Dwight Evans, a psychiatry professor and the head of the committee that selected the new dean, Rubenstein is already off to a great start.

"He has garnered great respect and enthusiasm from all those with whom he has worked. As we had anticipated he is demonstrating and delivering on all of the important qualifications that led to his appointment here at Penn," Evans said in an e-mail.



In the summer of 2001, a committee at Penn began a search to fill both the position of dean of the School of Medicine, previously held by Arthur Asbury, and executive vice president of the Health System, which had been temporarily filled by its CEO Robert Martin. Under Rubenstein, the two programs have been combined into Penn Medicine.

And Rubenstein has several challenges ahead of him. The Health System, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the late 1990s, has been slowly recovering, but the financial solvency of the system is never far from administrators' minds.

But many have a great deal of confidence in the system's new leader.

University President Judith Rodin, who hired Rubenstein in August, has called him "an exceptional educator and an accomplished physician, scientist and leader."

Rubenstein was a perfect fit, Evans says.

"Dr. Rubenstein is among the most highly respected and admired leaders in academic medicine today," Evans says. "He brings all the personal and professional success factors that will allow Penn to continue to create the future of medicine. He is the right person at the right time."

Rubenstein says he came because of his love for universities and for medicine, and because Penn's reputation and high ranking greatly impressed him.

"I saw many possibilities here to do things to make the place even greater than it already is," he says. "My vision is to take a school that is excellent and make it really, really great... if I can."

As part of his vision, Rubenstein hopes to make education "important and frontline," integrate science and clinical work, stabilize the finances and work on recruiting and retaining the very best faculty and staff here, "particularly women," he adds. "I'm very committed to their issues."



Rubenstein is a soft-spoken yet engaging and enthusiastic South African. He is an avid reader and enjoys medical history, as well as novels, classics and particularly biographies.

"I recently really enjoyed the biography of [Winston] Churchill by Jenkins," he says. "It was wonderful."

Two of his other great loves are music -- especially pieces by Mozart -- and Greek plays. "I find it fascinating that people 2000 years ago could write about so many wonderful, personal issues."

Born in the small town of Germiston, South Africa, Rubenstein and his family moved to Johannesburg when he was 6. His father, a Polish immigrant, worked as a pharmacist while his mother cared for him, his sister and his brother.

In 1960 Rubenstein attended the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where he received his medical degree His specialty lies in diabetes research and treatment.

In 1967 Rubenstein, searching for somewhere that could provide him with the research opportunities Johannesburg lacked, accepted a position on the faculty at the University of Chicago.

"I planned to stay a few years, but ended up staying for 30!" he says. "Chicago was a wonderful school."

In addition to serving on the faculty, Rubenstein was also chairman of Chicago's Department of Medicine, beginning in 1980. In 1997, ready for a change and with his wife anxious to move closer to their two sons, Rubenstein accepted an offer as dean of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Among his many accomplishments there were recruiting and retaining exceptional faculty and developing and executing strategic plans.

Now at Penn, Rubenstein has already had a strong impact here and gathered many admirers.

"He's very much a gentleman and has a kind word to say to everyone," Gillespie says. "He thanks everyone and always takes time to be kind and respectful."

"Isn't he nice?" Lilija Oleaga, the secretary of Rubenstein's Chief of Staff Susan Phillips, gushes. "He's so soft-spoken and just really nice to work for."



But despite the decades Rubenstein has devoted to medicine, he is still a tireless worker today.

"You couldn't work 24 hours and still get them all in," Gillespie tells him jokingly as she mentions a slew of people wishing to meet with him.

"I feel like it should be the weekend now, and it's only Monday!" Rubenstein replies. It is the end of a stressful day, yet he is still chipper and upbeat.

In a typical day Rubenstein will spend his time running from meeting to meeting -- around eight or so in a day -- and finish the day writing letters and thank you's and making phone calls.

"I go to bed at about 1 or 2 [a.m.]," he says. "I sleep about four or five hours a night. I've done that for about 30 years."

Amidst his numerous obligations, however, Rubenstein's favorite and most valuable is the time he spends teaching.

Every Monday from 5 to 7 p.m. Rubenstein does what he loves best -- he interacts with students. His class is a seminar on professionalism and ethics for seniors at the Medical School. He assigns his 10 to 12 students readings on medical history and biographies and then facilitates an interactive discussion on the issues raised by the texts.

"It's very socratic," he says.

This particular Monday, Rubenstein is seated comfortably amid his nine students -- the mood is casual and informal; he is truly in his element. The students appear greatly at ease and are all smiles as Rubenstein jokes about the length of the assignment for this week.

"I might have gotten carried away," he laughs.

In his class, Rubenstein has seemed to integrate both his personal and professional interests -- incorporating everything from his love for medical literature and biographies to plays by the ancient Greeks.

This week's class focused on the life of William Osler, a famed medic who spent many years at Penn.

"The class is really good," Alison Slemp, a senior at the School of Medicine and one of Rubenstein's students, says. "He's gone out of his way to interact at the basic level. It's real and informal, and he's gone out of his way to involve the students and get in touch with our concerns."

"I think it's important for the students to know that the dean is a human being, you know, a normal person inside that person," Rubenstein said earlier. "I think students often feel that deans are very remote, that they don't care.... My vision is to work hard for the students and the faculty and try to make them successful."

Sidebar: Penn Medicine a work in progress

Arthur Rubenstein takes over Penn Medicine at a time when the Health System has slowly begun a recovery from a rigorous battle with financial difficulties. In the late 1990s, the University Health System's financial woes reached a climax when officials considered selling the system after it incurred a $300 million deficit, which was due in part to new federal regulations. After several upheavals in its administration, Rubenstein's appointment seems to finally be bringing some measure of stability to the system. Rubenstein, however, credits University President Judith Rodin and Health System CEO Robert Martin with the turn-around, which began in June of 2001. "Dr. Rodin put us back together again," Rubenstein has said. Martin "has done an outstanding job. The finances look much better now; the organization is stable." Rubenstein acknowledges that while the financial troubles seem to have subsided, they are still far from achieving a more permanent level of fiscal stability. In addition to this, several problems remain, such as preventing negative impact on the University as a result of clinical operations. But the Health System is the only thing on Rubenstein's mind. In the fall of 2001, the School of Medicine, ranked among the top five medical schools in the nation by the U.S. News and World Report, was united with the University's Health System under a conglomeration known as Penn Medicine. This semester, Rubenstein and other administrators will be selecting a board of trustees for the new conglomeration. Rubenstein's dual position as Medical School dean and Health System executive vice president is a direct result of a reestablishment of the relationship between the academic and the clinical systems, which led to this merger, and which had been severed during the financial crisis. As dean and executive vice president, Rubenstein answers directly to Provost Robert Barchi and President Rodin respectively. Health System CEO Robert Martin reports to Rubenstein. In this way the two systems are closely interconnected. Since coming to Penn in August, Rubenstein has set out an agenda to improve and strengthen Penn Medicine. Among Rubenstein's many goals for both Penn's School of Medicine and the Health System are outlining a strategic plan, hiring and maintaining an exceptional faculty, establishing relations with the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania and bringing education and research to the forefront.

Photos by Jenny Winston and Andrew Margolies