It was a special kind of homecoming: Selwyn Vickers, M.D., former dean of the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, spoke as the 2025 Kirby I. Bland Endowed Lecturer on Tuesday, Feb. 18.
Vickers served as the Heersink dean and CEO of UAB Health System and UAB/Ascension St. Vincent’s Alliance until 2022, when he became the president and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK).
Vickers is an internationally recognized pancreatic cancer surgeon and researcher and a pioneer in health disparities research. Native to Alabama, he trained at Johns Hopkins University, the National Institutes of Health, and John Radcliffe Hospital of Oxford University, England. His ties to UAB go back to 1994 when he joined the faculty of the UAB Department of Surgery. In 2006, he left to become chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He returned to UAB in 2013.
Vickers still holds a voluntary faculty appointment as a professor of surgery at UAB.
Herbert Chen, M.D., the Fay Fletcher Kerner Endowed Chair of the Department of Surgery, said the department wanted to make an especially meaningful selection for the 10th annual Kirby I. Bland Endowed Lecturer.
“Dr. Vickers has perhaps made the biggest impact to the people sitting in this room and at UAB,” Chen said. “Selwyn has been a sponsor to several, a mentor to many, and a friend to all.”
Vickers’ lecture was entitled “Two American Treasures Serving Unique Missions for the United States of America.” He spoke about the “legacy of excellence” that UAB and MSK both share.
UAB and MSK, Vickers said, are both rooted in decades of innovation and continue to shape their missions by fostering a culture of groundbreaking research, compassionate patient care, and a steadfast commitment to advancing medical education and health care equity.
Vickers highlighted recent surgical oncology research findings at both institutions, such as the work by Jianmei Leavenworth, M.D., Ph.D., and James Markert, M.D., MPH, in the UAB Department of Neurosurgery, and by Bassel El-Rayes, M.D., deputy director of the UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“Both of these institutions have a ton to be proud of,” Vickers said. “I’m proud of both—for what they have done, with their rich histories, their groundbreaking research, their tremendous patient care, and their accumulation of talent.”
The Kirby I. Bland Endowed Lectureship was established in 2016 through the generous contributions of Kirby I. Bland, M.D., and his family. The lectureship, held annually, serves as a Department of Surgery Surgical Grand Rounds lecture. Bland is professor emeritus and chair emeritus in the Department of Surgery and is internationally renowned for his contributions to surgical oncology and for his distinguished career as a general surgeon, researcher, and editor.
Vickers thanked Bland at the beginning of his lecture and said that Bland, followed by Chen, has built the UAB surgery program into a “nationally iconic department of surgery in the country.”
“Thank you for showing how to lead, how to care for people, and how to be a really outstanding surgeon in your craft and as a surgical scientist,” Vickers said to Bland. “And thank you for giving me the opportunity to do the same.”