HJAR Jul/Aug 2026

DIALOGUE important to some of the research that we’re doing and it’s important to NCI des- ignation. We submitted our application for NCI designation — National Cancer Insti- tute designation . . . and we look forward to hearing back from them. It’ll be later in the year. They won’t even meet until October and we know that oftentimes institutions are not granted NCI designation on their first attempt, but I think it’s important that we have made our first attempt and I’m very proud of Mike Birrer and his team for get- ting this submission made. Proton is important to us for that reason as well and it’s important that if we’re going to be the cancer leader in the state, which we are, we need to make sure that we have the best technology available. Editor What do you think policymakers need to understand about the economics of operating UAMS? Barnes That we’re not just a hospital. We are the state’s only academic health center and that means that we do research and education and we provide the workforce for our state. Each of our 75 counties has a number of UAMS graduates working in it, whether doctors, pharmacists, nurses, physician assistants, respiratory therapists. Every healthcare profession is educated at UAMS and many of them work across our state. So we are an economic engine for the areas where we work, like central Arkansas certainly, but we add to the economy of every place where we have a regional program or a sister campus like in Fayetteville. Editor Tell us about UAMS Cares. Barnes I’m very excited about UAMS Cares. It’s not really a program. It’s going to define who UAMS is for decades to come because we are going to become the friendliest healthcare system in the region. Something that few academic centers would ever place as a goal, but we are very committed to it. Stephanie Gardner leads a book club. Stephanie is our provost and truly the heart and soul of UAMS. And when I came on as interim, the first book she chose . . . and she said [she chose it] because she knew I would like it, was UnreasonableHospitality byWill Guidara. It’s a great book and describes how he took a restaurant in New York and cou- pled unreasonable hospitality with great food and it became a five-star Michelin restaurant much because of the service. It tells great stories, for instance, the hot dog story. He very much trained his team to listen to clues that would help them go the extra yard to make their customers feel that they had an incredible experience that went above and beyond. When one of their servers overheard a family saying that the only thing they had not been able to do that they wanted to do in the city was they never got a hot dog from the hot dog stand, one of the workers ran down the street, bought a hot dog from one of the street vendors and then delivered it to the table under a silver cover. It obviously made quite the impres- sion. When I read that book, I kept thinking, “We can do this in healthcare.”I had been to Wilson, Arkansas and stayed at The Louis Hotel and had met the general manager there. He and his team are very much [into their] hospitality, not unlike other hotels, but they had kind of taken it the extra step and he’d been at the Greenbrier before and another place in Pennsylvania. Both places had outstanding awards for their hospital- ity. We got to know each other more. We ended up deciding to work with them and so they’re doing some consulting with us and they’re working with a group of 12 leaders here that we refer to as the devoted dozen — this team is absolutely incredible. They are working really hard to make sure that we take our culture to another level. We already have a strong culture here. TOSH, the orthopedic hospital I referred to, has a culture that emulates what we want to do across the institution. If you walk through there, everyone speaks to you. The employees speak to each other, and every- body is really there to make sure the patient gets the best care, and that their family is treated the best they can be. It extends into every part of that building. We want to do that across the institution and across every place where we have a location. I’m totally convinced we’ll accomplish it because folks are already buying into it and we’ve barely gotten started. We’re also reading Service Fanatics writ- ten by James Merlino, a colorectal surgeon at Cleveland Clinic. Toby Cosgrove, the well- known CEO from there, appointed him to be