Dr. Rubin is a Professor of Medicine and the Vice Chair for Research for the Department of Medicine.
What is your clinical expertise?
I see patients with general endocrinology problems, and I have a specialized interest in osteoporosis and metabolic bone disorders.
What is your current role in the Department of Medicine?
As the Vice Chair for Research, I am dedicated to expanding our research portfolio. The DOM is ranked #6 in the country in terms of federal funding – while this seems fantastic – with funding crunches and an aging research faculty (of which I am one!) we have to pursue a creative and aggressive strategy to grow research at UNC. There are fantastic opportunities here.
What current project or initiative at UNC are you involved in that you are excited about?
We have 2 major strategies already underway in the DOM. The first is a broad based recruitment of 9 new MD-investigators to our 10 divisions. We intend to recruit assistant or associate professor level faculty who are national leaders in subspecialty medicine research areas, who will also bring their clinical expertise to their home divisions.
Secondly, we have started a Physician-Scientist Training Pathway with Dr Alex Duncan as Director. With this development pathway, candidates will be recruited for a 2 year medical residency followed by 4-5 years of a clinical/research fellowship before transitioning to Medicine faculty. We hope that, at 2 scholars admitted each year, that in 5 years this pipeline will have recruited a large bolus of the best and brightest research physicians.
What do you love most about Chapel Hill/UNC?
My medical family lives here – my husband Larry Klein is (the best) UNC cardiologist, my daughter Klara Klein is an MD PhD student, currently in her 7th year of training (she got her PhD last year!), and her husband, Evan Zeitler, is a Med-Peds second year resident. Their twin boys, Sam and Harry, are 15 months old and are dangerous! We hope that our son, a legal aid lawyer in Manhattan, and daughter-in-law move here soon from NYC.