Updated Jan. 22, 2026, at 4:40 p.m.
Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences Barbara Bass will retire Feb. 28, officials announced Wednesday, marking the second senior University official to announce their departure in the last week.
Bass joined GW as dean in January 2020, overseeing the school’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, strategic plan development and expansion of its research enterprise. Then-University President Thomas LeBlanc also hired Bass to serve as CEO of the Medical Faculty Associates after GW restructured its agreement with the medical enterprise to give the University control over its budget and leadership, a role she stepped down from in 2024 amid continued multi-million-dollar losses to allow for full-time leadership.
Officials in a release Thursday announced that Andrew Artenstein as the interim dean of the SMHS and vice president for health affairs effective March 1. Artenstein has served as regional executive dean and professor of medicine for UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate and president of Baystate Medical Practices since 2016.
Bass, who studied to become a general surgeon at GW from 1979 to 1986, helmed several initiatives during her time at SMHS, including the launch of the Center for Population Health and Health Equity in 2022, the start of the school’s entry-level Occupational Therapy Doctorate program and the MFA and SMHS’ vaccine trials during COVID, per the release. Under Bass, research expenditures in cancer biology, neuroscience, HIV/AIDS and vaccine science surged 50 percent, the release highlights, also pointing to Bass’ collaboration with the Division of University Advancement to reap $80 million in donations for the school.
The release notably focuses on Bass’ achievements at SMHS, largely omitting her work at the MFA. Bass took the reins of the MFA, a nonprofit group of physicians from GW Hospital and SMHS, roughly a year after GW brought the practice under its governance.
The MFA grew into deep debt under her leadership, with officials walking back claims in both fiscal year 2023 and 2024 that the practice would break even. The MFA instead lost $80 million in FY2023 and $107 million in FY2024.
Seeking to stop the bleeding, officials brought in Bill Elliott, then-COO of the University of Maryland’s physician practice, in May 2024 to serve as interim CEO and later appointed him as permanent CEO in October. But Elliott, too, struggled to stop the MFA’s losses, and the practice lost $100 million in FY2025. GW has now entered an initial agreement with Universal Health Services, the owner and operator of GW Hospital, to co-fund the MFA as both parties negotiate a deal to end GW’s financial support for the medical enterprise.
Former MFA officials told The Hatchet in 2024 that GW’s move to install their own personnel to run the business side of the MFA was a “terrible financial decision.” Bass was the first physician leader of the MFA since 1999.
Bass stepped down in the role when officials brought on current CEO Bill Elliott with the goal of instilling “financial stability.” The practice lost $100 million in FY2025, with its debt to GW and other entities hitting $444 million.
Under Bass’ leadership, SMHS and the MFA agreed to staff Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center GW Health, a hospital located in Southeast D.C. that opened in April focused on combatting health disparities in Wards 7 and 8 — a part of D.C. that has historically faced barriers to accessing healthcare.
Bass also oversaw the launch of SMHS’s 2023-26 strategic plan, which the release states is focused on bolstering the school’s reputation and is anchored on four pillars: education, research, clinical care and population health and health equity. Bass led various research projects prior to her time at GW, focused on gastrointestinal cell biology, computational surgery, health services and surgical oncology, and she received funding from organizations, like the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration Research Service, the European Union and the National Science Foundation, according to the release.
Bass also served as the chair of the board of directors of the American Board of Surgery and other academic surgical societies in 2013 and was formerly president of the American College of Surgeons from 2017 to 2018, the release states.
“I was a practicing surgeon for 40 years. If there is one part of my professional life that I have missed in these past six years, it has been my patients,” Bass said in the release. “The personal bond of caring for a patient is the greatest of privileges that I have had over the course of my career.”
This story was updated with officials’ Thursday announcement of an interim dean of SMHS and vice president of health affairs.
