An Interview with Dean Loomer: One Year In

During a recent interview, UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry Dean, Dr. Peter M. Loomer, shared his thoughts from the year, his vision of the future, and kindly indulged this writer by answering a few fun questions. SoD NEWS: Dr. Loomer, you've served the UT Health San Antonio for a year now. Is there anything that has surprised you about the deanship? LOOMER: It’s certainly what I expected it to be. What has surprised me though is the number of meetings I have to attend! SoD NEWS: As an observer of your daily activities, I see that you place high importance on making yourself accessible to all faculty, staff, and students. You make room in your schedule for one-on-one meetings, you have arranged a number of Town Hall meetings to meet with each of the classes and staff, you are seen regularly in the campus halls and in the clinic. Why is it so significant to you to be visible on campus? LOOMER: I think it’s important to hear how things are going from the different groups. Everybody sees the school from a different angle, a different perspective. To really understand where the challenges are or to know what improvements people are looking for, you have to go to the people where they are to understand their situations. People have great ideas and a lot of ideas I get are from listening to all these smart people, so it’s important to be visible. This also helps me make better more informed decisions as well. SoD NEWS: You are deeply involved with international programs. What or who has sparked this area of interest? LOOMER: I think it really was my participation on a global health training grant many years ago. I was the dental person on an interprofessional training grant at the University of California at San Francisco and their mission at the university is “Improving health globally”, that’s their tagline. They do a lot of research in India, Africa, and other countries to improve general health and I was the person doing oral health. I think they picked me because in periodontal disease you see a lot of interaction between oral and systemic health. We see people locally who have great need, but when you go to some of these developing countries and see people with greater needs and can offer support, why not? SoD NEWS: In your last e-mail message to the school before the winter holidays, you provided a high-level outline of your initiatives in 2020. You mentioned improving patient experience, new programs and learning opportunities, leadership development, new faculty and staff awards, the 50th anniversary, and growing our philanthropic portfolio. That’s quite a future outlook – how do you begin making effective headway on each of these goals? LOOMER: Well I think it’s important to have partners to move all of these missions, these agenda items forward. It’s difficult for me to run all of these initiatives, so sometimes I start them and then get people to run with it. We need people who are motivated on their own to continue the movement forward. I need regular check-ins, regular meetings to make sure progress is being made and all of these areas. I’m very fortunate to have a fantastic staff to work with who really helps me in my day-to-day activities and fantastic faculty who help run and develop a lot of these initiatives. SoD NEWS: That's why your calendar is so full! Now for some fun…many effective leaders have extremely strict morning routines. What do you do in the mornings to prepare for your day? LOOMER: I always eat breakfast. First thing in the morning is some coffee and usually just a piece of toast with something on it, probably peanut butter. I think I have peanut butter almost every day. I do some stretching in the morning. I used to do exercise in the morning, but somehow just can’t do that anymore. I also listen to the news. I like KCBS, the internet radio from San Francisco. They give you the national news first then the local news in the bay area. SoD NEWS: What’s your favorite movie of all time? LOOMER: Hmm, I don’t know that I have one. You know, it’s going to sound hokey because it’s kind of a goofy movie, but I’ve always liked horror movies so “The Fog”. I didn’t appreciate “The Fog” until I moved to San Francisco where they do have this fog coming in in northern California. I like it not because it’s so sophisticated or anything, but because the cinematography is really interesting. SoD NEWS: What about books or T.V.? Do you belong to any fandoms? LOOMER: I like comedies. I tend to like all those silly comedies like “Gilligan’s Island”, “Green Acres”, all the oldies. SoD NEWS: If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? LOOMER: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. SoD NEWS: You seem to have visited numerous countries around the world. What country or city would you recommend we should all visit one day? LOOMER: Certainly Montréal, I’m biased there. I think Madrid is beautiful. I like Hawaii in general, it’s probably my favorite place to go. London, I like London as well. Oh, Miami beach is also very nice because of the boardwalk and they have a lot of little restaurants at night and also great shopping.