UNR School of Medicine

The University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine is a community-based, research-intensive medical school that has served the state of Nevada for 50 years as its first public medical school. UNR Med Dean, Thomas L. Schwenk, M.D. and Mick Hitchcock, Ph.D., researcher and Senior Advisor at Gilead Sciences, Inc., will provide an update on the latest developments at UNR Med, which is celebrating 50 years of medical education and research excellence. They will also discuss some of the impressive research being done at UNR Med and its economic impact on our community.

Since July 2011, Thomas L. Schwenk, M.D., has led the school’s commitment to medical education, patient care, research and community engagement as vice president for Health Sciences and dean of the School of Medicine.

For the last three years, Dr. Schwenk has served as a member of the Governor’s Graduate Medical Education Task Force, working to expand, develop and promote graduate medical education opportunities in Nevada.

Dr. Schwenk was elected to the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Council of Deans Administrative Board in 2017. He has served as a mentor to three Council of Deans fellows. He is currently serving on the 25-member Vision for the Future Commission, sponsored by the American Board of Medical Specialties, a national commission charged with developing guiding principles and recommendations for continuing board certification. Dr. Schwenk is board-certified in family medicine and sports medicine. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Family Medicine from 2000-2005. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2002, and is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha.

Since 1994, Dr. Schwenk has written and edited for Journal Watch, a publication of the Massachusetts Medical Society and the New England Journal of Medicine; he has served as the publication’s deputy editor since 2010.  Dr. Schwenk’s most recent research focuses on depression and mental illness in medical students, residents and physicians. He has co-authored over 160 publications, and has consulted in various capacities for over 50 medical schools and teaching hospitals. Dr. Schwenk

Michael J. M. Hitchcock, Ph.D. (Mick) is currently Senior Advisor at Gilead Sciences, Inc. He joined the company in 1993 when it had only 100 employees and no products or revenues (currently over 11,000 employees and >$20B annual revenue). Over that time period, he has held a variety of positions, including Vice President roles with responsibility for project and portfolio management, alliance management, strategic planning, medical affairs and specific areas of research. Prior to joining Gilead Sciences, Dr. Hitchcock spent 12 years with Bristol-Myers Squibb in infectious disease research and project planning roles. Over these 35+ years, he has been involved in the development and commercialization of a number of anti-infective agents, primarily antivirals (tenofovir, adefovir, cidofovir, elvitegravir, oseltamivir, stavudine, didanosine) for treatment of HIV, HBV, influenza, CMV and other viral diseases. This work included the development of the first single pill with three drugs that can be taken once daily to simplify treatment of HIV, and led to additional single tablet regimens that are the standard of care today.

Dr. Hitchcock received his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Melbourne, Australia and B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in biochemistry from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, England. He did post-doctoral research at Georgetown University and NIH prior to joining the industry.

More recently, he has been involved in promoting science, education and business at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a member of the UNR Foundation Board of Trustees, the College of Science Advisory Council and the College of Business Advisory Board. He has funded a number of programs at the UNR including stipends for graduate and undergraduate researchers, an endowed chair in Medical Biochemistry at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, the Chemical Ecology Center, laboratory and equipment upgrades (Proteomics Center, Genomics Center, Newborn Screening Lab, Microbiology teaching lab and “Pronghorn,” the High Performance Computing project), extra funds for the Entrepreneur Center, and a “Visualizing Science” program at the Reynolds School of Journalism.