New role announced for Dr. Sarah Van Orman
Dr. Sarah Van Orman, chief health officer for USC Student Health, has a newly expanded and elevated campus role as a university vice president and the chief campus health officer, as announced by Dr. Steven Shapiro, senior vice president for health affairs. Her overarching goal will be to embed health and wellness into all aspects of campus culture and to inform the institution in its aspirational goal to become a health-promoting university. Many at the university are already familiar with Dr. Van Orman’s calm, assured, and tireless leadership and public health implementation during the past few years of the COVID-19 pandemic, for which she was recognized with the USC Presidential Medallion, the university’s highest honor. Dr. Van Orman is also the division chief for college health in the Department of Family Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC.
She continues to be a champion for student well-being and patient care, and has supported the development of new comprehensive programs to address campus sexual assault and gender-based violence, student well-being, trauma-informed care delivery, and mental health.
In her expanded role, she will guide clinical direction to all campus programs and serve as a key advisor to help establish a campus health infrastructure on all matters related to the health and wellness of the university community. Expanded responsibilities in her portfolio include the following campus health priorities:
- Campus-wide prevention and health promotion programs and policies that emphasize adoption of evidence-informed and data-driven approaches; supporting individual and organizational wellness;
- Clinical health-related aspects of risk, crisis and emergency response, including emergency preparedness, coordination with local public health entities, and health communications;
- University employee occupational health programs; and
- Clinical direction for employee healthcare benefit plans.
Health care services through USC Student Health; the student health insurance plan (SHIP/Aetna); and care of student athletes through the Athletic Medicine department — which have all flourished as areas of excellence in patient care — continue as core areas under her oversight.
Dr. Van Orman brings a wealth of experience in leading healthcare services for university communities to this new role. As a junior faculty member at the University of Chicago, she was appointed as the medical director of the University of Chicago Student Care Center. From the University of Chicago, she was recruited to the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she was first the director of clinical services, then elevated to executive director. Over this period, Dr. Van Orman developed a national reputation in her field and became the president of the American College Health Association (ACHA). In 2017, she joined USC to lead Student Health as it become an integrated part of Keck Medicine of USC, and established an organization synonymous with the delivery of superb clinical care, outstanding service, and unquestionable integrity.
As a nationally-recognized leader in college health, she is the recipient of the Edward Hitchcock Award for Outstanding Contributions in College Health, and the Ruth Boynton Award for Distinguished Service, both from the American College Health Association.
