University of Arkansas System President Jay B. Silveria announced that C. Lowry Barnes, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), has been named interim chancellor of the university and will begin his role July 11.
Barnes replaces Cam Patterson, MD, who served as chancellor and UAMS Health chief executive officer for seven years before announcing in June his desire to step down for personal and medical reasons. Patterson’s last day will be July 10 before returning to a faculty position in cardiology at UAMS.
“Dr. Barnes is a nationally known orthopaedic surgeon whose name has been synonymous with UAMS and success at that campus for many years,” Silveria said. “I trust his knowledge, passion, and leadership to steer the state’s only academic health sciences center during this time of transition. It’s important to keep UAMS’s mission of serving all Arkansans moving forward and steady during the national search process for a permanent chancellor, and I’m grateful that Dr. Barnes was willing to accept this challenge and additional responsibility.”
Silveria said the planning process to begin a national search to find UAMS’s next permanent leader is underway, and an advisory search committee representative of UAMS campus leaders, community constituents, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas was also named. The committee will assist in the cultivation of a short list of final candidates for Silveria to consider before ultimately taking his pick to the Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas for final approval.
Barnes is a fellowship-trained, board-certified orthopaedic surgeon specializing in joint reconstruction and replacement surgery of the hip and knee. He joined UAMS in 2014 as professor and chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. In 2017, he was invested in the Carl L. Nelson, MD, Distinguished Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery. He also serves as the director of the Musculoskeletal Service Line at UAMS Health. Barnes is founding director of The Orthopaedic and Spine Hospital at UAMS.
“My passion for serving patients has always extended beyond my immediate work to a drive and ambition to make UAMS and this state better places,” Barnes said. “I’m honored to have been considered to take on this challenge and to be trusted by President Silveria and the Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas. I look forward to serving in a greater capacity during this time of transition. I believe UAMS is an extraordinary institution with programs reaching all four corners of our state. Working under the transformative power of the UA System, we will continue to expand our efforts to improve the health, health care and wellbeing of all Arkansans.”
After graduating with honors from the UAMS College of Medicine, Barnes remained at UAMS for his internship and residency in orthopaedic surgery. He completed an Adult Reconstructive Surgery and Arthritis Surgery Fellowship at Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston. He was then selected to participate in the prestigious John N. Insall Traveling Fellowship as well as an AO/ASIF (Association for the Study of Internal Fixation) Adult Orthopaedic Fellowship at Inselspital in Bern, Switzerland.
Barnes went into practice as a joint replacement surgeon at Arkansas Specialty Orthopaedics, later becoming its president and managing partner for more than a decade.
The search committee will soon begin by working with a search firm to finalize a chancellor position profile and advertising the open position to open the search process.