To the YSM and YNHHS Communities:

We are pleased to announce that Wolfram Goessling, MD, PhD, has accepted the position of chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine (YSM), chief of Internal Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH), and physician-in-chief for Medicine across the Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS), effective Sept. 1, 2025, pending approval by Yale Corporation and the YNHH Board of Trustees.

Currently, Dr. Goessling is chief of Gastroenterology and the Jules L. Dienstag, MD, and Betty and Newell Hale Endowed Chair in Gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. He also serves as the Robert H. Ebert Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the HMS director of the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST).

Dr. Goessling’s research identifies regulators of liver growth and differentiation during development, organ regeneration, and cancer formation. He pioneered the use of zebrafish models for studying liver disease and, with his colleagues, was the first to use chemical genetic screening methodologies to identify molecules for use in clinical trials. Collaborating with the Framingham Heart Study, Dr. Goessling’s group was also among the first to validate genes identified in genome-wide association studies for liver and kidney disorders functionally in in vivo models. Dr. Goessling’s laboratory will move to Yale in the fall.

As chief of Gastroenterology at MGH, Dr. Goessling led the development and implementation of innovative clinics, initiatives, and programs that serve unique patient needs and enable faculty to follow their interests. These include a multidisciplinary alcohol use-related liver disease program, which integrates inpatient and ambulatory efforts with social work and substance use services; a GI cancer complications center that assesses, treats, and offers longitudinal care for GI side effects due to cancer therapy; a multidisciplinary clinic for pancreas disorders; and novel end-stage liver disease care models that coordinate with palliative care services. Dr. Goessling’s support was instrumental in creating a comprehensive care center for patients with inflammatory bowel disorders, initiating mental health care specialist services for patients with neuro-gastroenterological and inflammatory bowel disorders.

At HST, Dr. Goessling continued the educational mission to train physician-scientists who will change medicine in the future. Under his leadership, the diversity of both the student body and teaching faculty increased significantly. He led the development of a new, innovative training curriculum for physician-innovators that integrates basic science with clinical reasoning. He was successful in leading fundraising initiatives to provide support for faculty to implement this curriculum. His efforts also forged long-term meaningful relationships with alumni and resulted in several new endowed scholarships that allow students to spend an additional year performing research.

Recognizing his critical contributions to science and medicine, Dr. Goessling is a Pew Biomedical Scholar and has received many prestigious awards, including the William Randolph Hearst Young Investigator in Medicine Award at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH); the Dr. Irving M. London Teaching Award at Harvard-MIT HST; the Donald O’Hara, PhD, Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching at Harvard-MIT; the MGH100 Award; and the Tiedemann Courage in Cancer Award from the Hope Funds for Cancer Research. Currently, Dr. Goessling is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Interurban Clinical Club. In addition, Dr. Goessling has served as an associate editor for Hepatology, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

Dr. Goessling earned a medical degree and PhD (summa cum laude) from the University of Witten/Herdecke Medical School in Witten, Germany, and received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard University. He pursued his residency training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he also served as chief medical resident. He completed fellowships in medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Partners combined fellowship and in gastroenterology at MGH.

In his new role at YSM, Dr. Goessling will focus on expanding equitable access for patients, while continuing to pursue excellence in patient care, combined with support for educators in medicine and the growth of the physician-scientist program.

We want to thank Gary Désir, MD '80, for his leadership of YSM’s Department of Internal Medicine over his 12 years as chair and his continued service in this capacity prior to Dr. Goessling’s arrival. We are also grateful to the search committee, which included Nita Ahuja, MD, MBA, FACS; Clifford Bogue, MD; Michael Caplan, PhD, MD; Keith Choate, MD, PhD; Arnim Dontes, MBA; Katherine Heilpern, MD; Margaret McGovern, MD, PhD; Valerie Reinke, PhD; Brian R. Smith, MD; Arjun Venkatesh, MD, MBA, MHS; Ena Williams, PhD, MBA, RN; and Eric Winer, MD.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Goessling on his new role and in welcoming him to Yale and YNHHS.

Sincerely,

Nancy J. Brown, MD
Jean and David W. Wallace Dean of Medicine
C.N.H. Long Professor of Internal Medicine

Pamela M. Sutton-Wallace, MPH
President, Yale New Haven Health