UK picks Owensboro native, Duke doctor to head health care enterprise

The head of Duke University’s physician practice plan will take over the University of Kentucky’s sprawling billion-dollar health enterprise, officials announced Friday morning.

Mark Newman, 57, an Owensboro native, an anesthesiologist and the current president of Duke’s Private Diagnostic Clinic, will succeed Michael Karpf, who has led UK HealthCare for more than a decade. His starting salary will be $1,111,500, making him one of UK’s highest-paid employees after neurosurgeon Phil Tibbs, who makes a little over $1 million, men’s basketball coach John Calipari and football coach Mark Stoops, who have multi-million dollar packages. UK officials said the salary was at the 75^thpercentile of comparable academic medical centers.

Newman, an Air Force veteran who has worked at Duke since 1992, will start in October.

“Dr. Newman’s background as a clinician-scientist, a chairman, a hospital leader and president of a large multi-specialty physician group, as well as his love for the commonwealth and its people, give him unique insight and experience to lead our academic medical campus,” UK President Eli Capilouto said.

Newman grew up on an Owensboro farm. He attended Western Kentucky University to be near his family while his father was ill and began running the family farm after his father died.

He received the Air Force Health Professions Scholarship to attend medical school at the University of Louisville. He completed a residency in the Air Force and a fellowship in cardiothoracic anesthesiology and transesophageal echocardiography at Duke University Medical Center before returning to active duty at Wilford Hall Ambulatory Medical Center. He was deployed for Operation Just Cause and then for operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Newman and his wife, Susan, have three grown children.

“As executive vice president for health affairs at the University of Kentucky, I will be helping lead one of the nation’s renowned institutions of higher learning, research and clinical care as well as returning to my home state,” Newman said. “The last decade has seen UK HealthCare evolve into a system with the focus and the flexibility to grow and build on its reputation while advancing the health and patient care opportunities for people throughout the commonwealth, and I look forward to being part of its continued success.”

Karpf, who oversaw a massive expansion of UK HealthCare services and facilities, announced his retirement last fall. Karpf said he plans to transition to a part-time faculty position, working on health policy issues. Karpf, who was making about $909,000 a year, is in talks with Capilouto on his role and salary moving forward.

This story was originally published July 7, 2017 at 9:23 AM with the headline "UK picks Owensboro native, Duke doctor to head health care enterprise."