Issue link: https://kusm-wichita.uberflip.com/i/1545861
Garold Minns wants his successor's transition to dean of KU School of Medicine-Wichita to be smoother than his own. As Minns recalls, he only had "about a month or two" notice that he was about to become dean in 2012 due to the departure of his predecessor, H. David Wilson, M.D., for a job in Kentucky. "I'd worked with him as associate dean but in terms of getting to meet all the other people he had relationships with, there wasn't time," Minns said. "In terms of getting to know the nitty-gritty, it was pretty quick." That's one reason Minns stayed on as dean emeritus after Laura Tapati, M.D., was named dean in April 2025. The other is his desire to help with the move of most of the school's operations to the new Wichita Biomedical Campus under construction downtown, which is scheduled to welcome its first students in July 2027. The opening date "sounds like more than a year away, but time flies," he said. Minns recently sat down for an interview in the current school's lobby, pausing occasionally to greet staff and faculty members passing by. A soft-spoken Kansas native with a fondness for wide-brimmed hats, Minns is in some ways the living embodiment of KU Wichita. He was a member of its second graduating class (1976) who joined its faculty in 1980. Minns completed his residency and fellowship in internal medicine at KU Wichita, became director of its residency program in 1982, and associate dean for academic and student affairs in 1994. During his time employed at KU Wichita, the school has been located in a former county hospital for the indigent that was built at East Ninth Street and Minneapolis in 1950. After Medicaid and Medicare came along and made it possible for most elderly in need of care to live in nursing homes, the hospital mostly cared for people with alcohol use disorder. "It still looked like a 1950 hospital," Minns said of the place when he arrived. "It was pretty primitive." 29