For Jose Florez, MD, PhD, there’s no question what makes Massachusetts General Hospital a special place to work. “It’s not the walls, it’s not the institution, it’s not the history,” he says. “It’s the people.”

“I think there’s an equal commitment to excellence in all we do at every level—from physicians and researchers to nursing, environmental services and the cafeteria,” he explains. “I also think there’s a real commitment to the people we serve. We’re doing something because there’s a greater cause.”

In his new role as chair of the Department of Medicine, Florez will work to support that culture of collaboration and compassion while keeping the hospital’s mission front and center.

“One of the reasons I took this job is because I was persuaded by everybody I talked to—from Mass General Brigham (MGB) leadership all the way down—that we are committed to our fourfold mission, which includes patient care, research, education and community. And those four pillars are non-negotiable. They’re part of who we are.”

Florez has significant experience to draw on in his new role. As a clinician, he established the Down Syndrome Program at Mass General, oversaw the expansion of the Inpatient Diabetes Service and was instrumental in the creation of the Diabetes in Pregnancy Program, the Endocrine Hypertension Clinic and the Diabetes Genetics Clinic.

Prior to becoming chair of Medicine, he served as chief of the Endocrine Division and the Diabetes Unit within the department. He is also an investigator at the Center for Genomic Medicine at Mass General, where his research aims to unravel the genetic basis of type 2 diabetes and translating these findings into clinical care.

He is an institute member and co-director of the Metabolism Program at the Broad Institute and an MGH Research Scholar 2013-2019.

As department chair, Florez now oversees the largest clinical and research department at Mass General, with 10 clinical divisions, seven research centers/units, and 19 training programs comprising over 1,000 faculty members, 900 trainees and 100 medical practices.

A More Welcoming Place

Mass General has changed in many ways since Florez first arrived here as an intern in 1997.

“I think it’s become more welcoming in general,” he says. “It’s more welcoming to researchers—we provide packages [when they arrive] to make sure they are empowered to succeed.”

“I also think we’re more nurturing, more supportive,” he says. “We’ve seen that in training, we’ve seen that in junior faculty.”

While there is still work to be done, the hospital has also become more welcoming for women and people of diverse backgrounds and training, he says.

“It’s also a place that has learned to work with its neighbors,” he says. “We are a lot more collaborative, and there’s an incredible pharmaceutical and biotech ecosystem not too far from here that we have a better relationship with now.”

Tackling Research Challenges

In his new role, Florez will work collaboratively with leaders at Mass General and MGB to tackle some of the challenges facing the research community, including the current financial crunch.

“We used to be able to fund the research enterprise via the clinical margin, and that has been dwindling over time,” he says. “So how do you deliver on that mission in the current financial climate?”

Other challenges include regulatory burdens, the high cost of living in Boston—particularly for PhD scientists who don’t have a clinical practice to support their work—and the research space crunch.

There’s a multipronged strategy that is being implemented by Robert Kingston, PhD, Chief Academic Officer and Senior Vice President for Research and Education, and MGB leadership to address these issues, Florez says.

“We need to be better at indirect cost recovery and we need to be much more engaged with philanthropy,” he says. “We have so much to offer in terms of what we deliver for patients and for science. We can compete with all the other institutions in town that are really good at philanthropy.”

“We can also get better at collaborating with industry in both big pharma and biotech, making sure that we not only do science with them but that we’re also recovering indirect costs from them.”

Adjusting to a New Role

Florez is still settling into his new role as chair, which officially began on Sept. 1. “The workload is one order of magnitude bigger than what I used to have,” he says. The nature of the work has shifted as well.

“It’s a lot more enabling others, empowering others; facilitating; and making sure you put the structures in place or continue the initiatives that allow other people to really carry the torch.”

To stay balanced, Florez gets daily exercise through early morning swims in the pool at Charles River Park (adjacent to the Mass General campus).

He has four daughters between the ages of nine and 15 and enjoys being the family cook—a role that includes planning out meals and doing the food shopping. “That’s one thing I’m hoping to maintain as much as possible.”

“I’m also a person of faith, so I make sure that there’s a little piece of that in my daily routine to keep me sane and centered in terms of my personal approach to life.”

“Other than that, I’m just enjoying meeting so many new people,” he says. “I get a lot of my energy from meeting with people who are passionate and motivated, smart, fun and interesting. There are plenty of those at Mass General.”