HJAR Jul/Aug 2026

DIALOGUE 12 JUL / AUG 2026 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS practices in town and we developed a prac- tice calledArkansas Specialty Orthopedics. It could take care of almost every sub- specialty in orthopedics other than pedi- atrics and tumor. I enjoyed that. [I] ran the organizations. I was very fortunate to have a large total joint practice. I stepped down as managing partner of the group after 12 or 14 years. And then, I was just doing total joints, was on the CHI St. Vincent Founda- tion Board of Directors and their finance committee. I was still very much engaged; I had a nonprofit research foundation and was doing a lot of research, so I still had lots of academic interest, but I realized I really wasn’t making an impact as far as education. Then, my mother developed symptoms. Initially, I thought she had had a stroke. I took her to the hospital and they had a few ideas of what was wrong with her and she got treatment for a number of weeks and she didn’t get better. So finally, one night, I did — like so many of my patients do — I went to the internet to see if I could diag- nose my mom. Unfortunately, within a mat- ter of minutes, I decided she had bulbarALS, which was a horrible diagnosis. I called her neurologist the next morning and she said, “Your mom doesn’t have that. You’re doing like doctors do; you think the worst.” She then said, “But I’m going to send you to UAMS because that’s where the experts are, and I’m going to have her see Stacy Rudnicki.” Well, obviously, it was impor- tant to hear her say that’s where the experts are, and obviously, that’s what academic medicine is known for — having experts. And wait a minute, maybe if I think I’m an expert, maybe that’s where I should be. But then when I brought my mom here, she saw Stacy, and she was absolutely incredible as a physician. She made the diagnosis — the same diagnosis I thought my mom had — in a matter of 30 minutes or so. I brought my mom back to UAMS for many of her appointments and I really enjoyed being in the academic setting again, being around a team-based approach toward care because when they would see my mother, she’d be seen by the attending, the resident, sometimes a medical student, sometimes a nurse, and I realized howmuch I missed it. So I started going to some lec- tures, went to someALS fundraising events and lecture shifts they had and then, it worked out. They didn’t have a total joint surgeon at UAMS, so I started working half a day a week or so teaching the residents how to do hip and knee replacement. I absolutely loved it and this went on for maybe six months, maybe a year. And then, the chair position became open — and Rick Smith was the dean then — and he reached out to me one day when I was in the middle of my private practice clinic in Sherwood and wanted to know if he could meet with me that afternoon. So I told him no a few times because I had something I had to do. And finally he convinced me to just stop for a few minutes to meet him and I said, “Okay, I’ll meet you there, but I can’t stay long and I’ll be the guy walking in [with] scrubs because I don’t know you.” We talked for a few minutes and then he offered me the chair position, saying that he, the chancellor, and the CEO had decided they didn’t want to do a search. They wanted me to be the chair. An unusual way to do things, not to have a search, but probably more unusual to have somebody who’s been in private practice for 20 something years come over as chair of an academic institu- tion. Rick Smith and I negotiated for seven or eight months before we finally got to a situation that we thought worked for both of us. I knew that I really wanted to grow things as chair, and it has obviously been a very fun run. We accomplished many of the things that I wanted to do in orthopedics. I was the 12th person hired at the time in ortho- pedics and now we have 50-something in our department. Actually, more than that now because physical medicine rehabilita- tion is also in our department, but we have a group in Northwest Arkansas taking care of the Razorbacks, something else we planned to do [that] were able to get done. We then built an orthopedic hospital in Little Rock and it’s called TOSH, The Ortho- paedic and Spine Hospital, and we’re very proud of that. We have another orthopedic hospital opening in Northwest Arkansas in about 13 months. It, too, is called TOSH — but it’s The Orthopaedic and Sports Medi- cine Hospital because of our large sports medicine practice in Northwest Arkansas. That’s a long answer to how I ended up in academics, but that’s how I ended up in aca- demics and back at UAMS and I couldn’t be happier that it worked out that way. Obviously, I wish I had not been intro- duced to UAMS so strongly again by my mother’s tough diagnosis, but I think she would be glad to know what this . . . one of the things her diagnosis led to. She was an incredible lady. I tell everyone that my chil- dren learned more from their grandmother and how she fought that disease than they’ll ever learn from their parents. Editor So when you accepted the chancellor role, what do you believe UAMS needed most from you? Barnes We needed a leader who was going to connect with not just the doctors who practice clinical medicine, but a leader who is going to connect with our researchers, our educators, our other colleges, our 12,500 employees who work around our state, and someone who was willing to make a decision and be out front and take responsibility for those decisions. Frankly, we just needed a real leader to step [in] and I thought we needed Arkansans to do that. Editor So healthcare is a difficult business right now — many hospital systems are under severe economic pressure and some are cutting staffs or services, including an announcement out of Northwest Arkansas earlier in June. You’ve spoken about growth rather than cuts as a way for UAMS to thrive. Can you please explain that?